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Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.Major, Richard Henry

History

Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.

Name: Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.
Author: Major, Richard Henry

Major, Richard Henry

Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Discoveries in geography -- Portuguese; Voyages and travels

How they get their fire I know not, but probably, as Indians do, out of
wood. I have seen the Indians of Bon-Airy do it, and have myself tryed
the experiment. They take a flat piece of wood, that is pretty soft, and
make a small dent in one side of it; then they take another hard round
stick, about the bigness of one’s little finger, and sharpening it at
one end like a pencil, they put that sharp end in the hole or dent of
the flat soft juice, and then rubbing or twirling the hard piece between
the palms of their hands, they drill the soft piece till it smokes, and
at last takes fire.

These people speak somewhat through the throat, but we could not
understand one word that they said. We anchored, as I said before,
January the 5th, and seeing men walking on the shore, we presently set a
canoe to get some acquaintance with them, for we were in hopes to get
some provisions among them. But the inhabitants, seeing our boat coming,
run away and hid themselves. We searched afterwards three days, in hopes
to find their houses; but found none; yet we saw many places where they
had made fires. At last, being out of hopes to find their habitations,
we searched no farther; but left a great many toys ashore, in such
places where we thought that they would come. In all our search we found
no water, but old wells on the sandy bays.

At last we went over to the islands, and there we found a great many of
the natives: I do believe there were forty on one island, men, women,
and children. The men, at our first coming ashore, threatened us with
their lances and swords; but they were frighted by firing one gun, which
we fired purposely to scare them. The island was so small that they
could not hide themselves; but they were much disordered at our landing,
especially the women and children, for we went directly to their camp.
The lustiest of the women snatching up their infants ran away howling,
and the little children run after squeaking and bawling, but the men
stood still. Some of the women, and such people as could not go from us,
lay still by a fire, making a doleful noise as if we had been coming to
devour them; but when they saw that we did not intend to harm them they
were pretty quiet, and the rest that fled from us at our first coming
returned again. This, their place of dwelling, was only a fire, with a
few boughs before it, set up on that side the wind was of.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

History

Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.

Major, Richard Henry

Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Discoveries in geography -- Portuguese; Voyages and travels

How they get their fire I know not, but probably, as Indians do, out of
wood. I have seen the Indians of Bon-Airy do it, and have myself tryed
the experiment. They take a flat piece of wood, that is pretty soft, and
make a small dent in one side of it; then they take another hard round
stick, about the bigness of one’s little finger, and sharpening it at
one end like a pencil, they put that sharp end in the hole or dent of
the flat soft juice, and then rubbing or twirling the hard piece between
the palms of their hands, they drill the soft piece till it smokes, and
at last takes fire.

These people speak somewhat through the throat, but we could not
understand one word that they said. We anchored, as I said before,
January the 5th, and seeing men walking on the shore, we presently set a
canoe to get some acquaintance with them, for we were in hopes to get
some provisions among them. But the inhabitants, seeing our boat coming,
run away and hid themselves. We searched afterwards three days, in hopes
to find their houses; but found none; yet we saw many places where they
had made fires. At last, being out of hopes to find their habitations,
we searched no farther; but left a great many toys ashore, in such
places where we thought that they would come. In all our search we found
no water, but old wells on the sandy bays.

At last we went over to the islands, and there we found a great many of
the natives: I do believe there were forty on one island, men, women,
and children. The men, at our first coming ashore, threatened us with
their lances and swords; but they were frighted by firing one gun, which
we fired purposely to scare them. The island was so small that they
could not hide themselves; but they were much disordered at our landing,
especially the women and children, for we went directly to their camp.
The lustiest of the women snatching up their infants ran away howling,
and the little children run after squeaking and bawling, but the men
stood still. Some of the women, and such people as could not go from us,
lay still by a fire, making a doleful noise as if we had been coming to
devour them; but when they saw that we did not intend to harm them they
were pretty quiet, and the rest that fled from us at our first coming
returned again. This, their place of dwelling, was only a fire, with a
few boughs before it, set up on that side the wind was of.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.

Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.

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