Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1.: With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During; The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43.; By Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative; Of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea.Stokes, John Lort
History
Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1.: With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During; The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43.; By Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative; Of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea.
Stokes, John Lort
Australia -- Description and travel; Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Natural history -- Australia
Their hair is always dark, sometimes straight and sometimes curled, and
not unfrequently tied up behind; but we saw no instance of a negro, or
woolly, head among them. They wear the beard upon the chin, but not upon
the upper lip, and allow it to grow to such a length as enables them to
champ and chew it when excited by rage; an action which they accompany
with spitting it out against the object of their indignation or contempt.
They have very overhanging brows, and retreating foreheads, large noses,
full lips, and wide mouths: in some cases they want the two foreteeth in
the upper jaw, and while, in any one tribe in which the custom prevails,
it seems to be unanimous, it does not appear to be, by any means,
universally diffused along the whole north-western coast. The
unfavourable impression produced by the prevailing character of their
physiognomy, is confirmed, if their phrenological conformation is taken
into consideration; and certainly, if the principles of that science are
admitted to be true, these savages are woefully deficient in all the
qualities which contribute to man's moral supremacy. Let me, in justice,
add, that while we found them ignorant and incurious to the last degree,
they were generally suspicious rather than treacherous, and not
insensible to such acts of kindness as they could comprehend.
Upon all this extent of coast, we saw no single instance of the use, or
even existence, of any proa, or canoe; and my own opinion, strengthened
by personal experience, and enforced by the authority of the most recent
navigators, is, that the canoe is not used upon the north-west coast. The
negative evidence, at least, is strongly in favour of this presumption;
for, while we saw the canoe in use in Clarence Strait--the western
boundary of the northern coast--we saw nothing but the raft to the south
of that point. I cannot, therefore, avoid the conclusion, that, misled by
the similarity of external appearance, Tasman mistook the raft of
unbarked timber for a bark canoe, such as he may have seen upon other
parts of the coast.
We had a return of the same kind of squall from the eastward, as we had
experienced before our arrival in Roebuck Bay, and from which, since that
time till now, we had luckily managed to
escape.
January 24.
We were again at work by daylight, but were delayed, getting clear of the
foul ground, lying off Cape Baskerville, on which we twice shoaled the
water to three and five fathoms, five and seven miles West and by South
from that headland.
BEAGLE BAY.
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