Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/366

308 difficult to guess, unless it be the barrenness of the soil and the scarcity of fresh water. But why should not mankind increase here as fast as in other places, unless their small tribes have frequent wars in which many are destroyed? They were indeed generally furnished with plenty of weapons, whose points of the stings of sting-rays seemed intended for use against none but their own species.

That their customs are nearly the same throughout the whole length of the coast along which we sailed, I should think very probable, though we had connections with them at only one place. Yet we saw them with our eyes or glasses many times, and at Sting-ray's Bay had some experience of their manners. Their colour, arms, and method of using them were the same as those we afterwards had a nearer view of. They likewise in the same manner went naked, and painted themselves, their houses were the same, they notched large trees in the same manner, and even the bags they carried their furniture in were of exactly the same manufacture, something between netting and knitting, which I have nowhere else seen. In the intermediate places our glasses might deceive us in many things, but their colour and want of clothes we certainly did see, and whenever we came ashore the houses and sheds, places where they had dressed victuals with heated stones, and trees notched for the convenience of climbing them, sufficiently evinced them to be the same people.

The tribe with which we had connections consisted of twenty-one people, twelve men, seven women, a boy and a girl; so many at least we saw, and there might have been more, especially women, whom we did not see. The men were remarkably short and slenderly built in proportion; the tallest we measured was 5 feet 9 inches, the shortest 5 feet 2 inches; the average height seemed to be about 5 feet 6 inches. What their absolute colour is, is difficult to say, they were so completely covered with dirt, which seemed to have stuck to their hides from the day of their birth, without their once having attempted to remove it. I tried indeed by spitting upon my finger and