described the inhabitants of the coast about the twenty-fifth
degree to the southward of the line.
“ The inhabitants of this country are the miserablest people
in the world. The Hodmadods of Monomotapa, though a
nasty people, yet for wealth are gentlemen to these ; who
have no houses and skin garments, sheep, poultry, and fruits
of the earth, ostrich eggs, &c. as the Hodmadods have; and
setring aside; their humane shape, they differ but: little from
brutes. They are tall, straight-bodied, and thin, with small
long'limbs. They have great heads, round foreheads, arid*
great brows. Their eyelids are always half closed, to keep
the flies out of their eyes, they being so troublesome here,
that no fanning will keep them from coming to one’s face,
and without the assistance of both hands to keep them off,
they will creep into one’s nostrils, and mouth too, if the lips
are not shut very close. So that from their infancy,- being
thus annoyed with these insects, they dos never open their
eyes as other people, and. therefore they cannot see far, unless
they hold up their heads as if they were looking at something
above them.
u They have great bottle noses, pretty full lips, and wide
mouths. The two fore teeth of their upper jaw are wanting
in all of them, men and women, old and young; whether they
draw them out I know n o t; neither have they any beards.
They are long-visaged, and of a very unpleasing aspect,, having
no one graceful feature in their faces. Their vbair is. black,
short, and curled, like that of the Negroes, and not long and
lank, like that of the common Indians. The colour of their
skins, both of their faces and the rest of their body, is coal
black, like that of the Negroes of New Guinea.
Jf They have no sort o f clothes, but a piece of the rind of a
tree tied like a girdle about their waists, and a handful of
long grass, or three or four small green boughs, full of leaves,
thrust underneath their girdle to cover their nakedness.
11 They have no houses, but lie in the open air without any
covering, the earth being their bed, and the heavens their
canopy.*
In a subsequent voyage Dampte* again visited the coast of
New Holland. The place he then touched at was about forty
or fifty leagues to thb south-west of his former landing-place.
He says the people here had the most unpleasing looks and
the worst features he ever saw; and adds, 0 These were much
the same blinking, creatures,: (here being also abundance of
the same kind of flesh flies teasing them,) and with the same
black skins, and hair ffizzledy tall, and thin, &c. as those
were. But we had not the: opportunity to see whether these,
as the former, wanted two of their fore^teeth/^ ï
pj We have full and satisfactory accounts o f the physical eha^-
racters of the Australians on different parts of the coast and
of rtbe” interior &@m many ‘celebrated voyagers, and from
persons who have resided , in the English colonies. Among
them I must mention Captain Cook and Captain Flinders,
Mr. Collins,/M. Péron, M. Bèsson^i CaptainSumont dfUrville,
Captain■ Fitzroy, Captain Gray. It would be a tiresome and
usdess repetition if I were to extract *the passagës from all
these writers in which they' have described the natives of
Australia. All their accounts agree in thëïprincipal points.
The only material difference - noted is in ? theübulk and stature,
which in the northern parts, and where fthé people have a
better supply of food, are much greater than in barren deserts
where the? race appears to have dwindled; under a process of
almost starvation, to which they have been subjected for successive
generations. The colour of the skin varies likewise
in some instances to a much ligbtêrihue,ih u t this appears to
be a sporadic variety, and never touffeet a whole clan as far
as we yet know. The colour of the hair is, however, in some
inland > districts brown instead o f black.*
I shall terminate this section by citing one «of thé latest
description of these people, viz. that given by the writer ' of
the late Exploring Expedition sent from the United States.
“ The natives of Australia differ,” says Mr. Wilkes, “ from
any other race of men in features, compfexion; habits, and
language. Their colour and features assimilate them to the
African type; their long black silky hair has a resemblance
* Mitchell’s Travels in Australia.