Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/210

( 185 ) The natives of this part of New South Wales appear to differ very little from those in the vicinity of Port Jackson; the same cast of features bespeaks the same origin; their arms, their ornaments, and their dances, are much alike, and they seem to differ only in language, and in the ceremony of knocking out a front tooth of every male, those of Port Philip having their jaws perfect. One woman only was seen, who retired by desire of the men on our approach, and one boy paid us a visit, from whose conduct we could not infer the existence of a great degree of subordination, founded on difference of age; this youngster was more loquacious and troublesome than the men.

Nothing could offer a more perfect picture of reposing solitude, than the wilds