Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/355

1770 customs as came under my observation in the several places we landed upon during the run along the coast. Dampier in general seems to be a faithful relater; but in the voyage in which he touched on the coast of New Holland he was in a ship of pirates; possibly himself not a little tainted by their idle examples, he might have kept no written journal of anything more than the navigation of the ship, and when upon coming home he was solicited to publish an account of his voyage, may have referred to his memory for many particulars relating to the people, etc. These Indians, when covered with their filth, which I believe they never wash off, are, if not coal black, very near it. As negroes, then, he might well esteem them, and add the woolly hair and want of two front teeth in consequence of the similitude in complexion between these and the natives of Africa; but from whatever cause it might arise, certain it is that Dampier either was very much mistaken in his account, or else saw a very different race of people from those we have seen.

In the whole length of coast which we sailed along, there was a very unusual sameness to be observed in the face of the country. Barren it may justly be called, and in a very high degree, so far at least as we saw. The soil in general is sandy and very light; on it grow grass, tall enough but thin set, and trees of a tolerable size; never, however, near together, being in general 40, 50, and 60 feet apart. This, and spots of loose sand, sometimes very large, constitute the general face of the country as you sail along it, and indeed the greater part even after penetrating inland as far as our situation would allow us to do. The banks of the bays were generally clothed with thick mangroves, sometimes for a mile or more in breadth. The soil under these is rank mud, always overflowed every spring tide. Inland you sometimes meet with a bog upon which the grass grows rank and thick, so that no doubt the soil is sufficiently fertile. The valleys also between the hills, where runs of water come down, are thickly clothed with underwood; but they are generally very steep and narrow, so that upon the