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.
Major, Richard Henry
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Discoveries in geography -- Portuguese; Voyages and travels
“Not finding fresh water upon such of the islands as were visited that
day, Captain Dampier quitted his anchorage next morning, and ‘steered
away E.N.E., coasting along as the land lies.’ He seems to have kept the
land in sight, in the daytime, at the distance of four to six leagues;
but the shore being low, this was too far for him to be certain whether
all was main land which he saw; and what might have been passed in the
night was still more doubtful.
“August 30th, being in latitude 18 degrees, 21 minutes, and the weather
fair, Captain Dampier steered in for the shore; and anchored in eight
fathoms, about three-and-a-half leagues off. The tide ran ‘very swift
here; so that our nun-buoy would not bear above the water to be seen. It
flows here, as on that part of New Holland I described formerly, about
five fathoms.’
“He had hitherto seen no inhabitants; but now met with several. The
place at which he had touched in the former voyage ‘was not above forty
or fifty leagues to the north-east of this. And these were much the same
blinking creatures (here being also abundance of the same kind of flesh
flies teizing them), and with the same black skins, and hair frizzled,
tall and thin, etc., as those were. But we had not the opportunity to
see whether these, as the former, wanted two of their fore teeth.’ One
of them, who was supposed to be a chief, ‘was painted with a circle of
white paste or pigment about his eyes, and a white streak down his nose,
from his forehead to the tip of it. And his breast, and some part of his
arms, were also made white with the same paint.’
“Neither bows nor arrows were observed amongst these people: they used
wooden lances, such as Dampier had before seen. He saw no houses at
either place, and believed they had none; but there were several ‘things
like haycocks, standing in the savannah; which, at a distance, we
thought were houses, looking just like the Hottentots’ houses at the
Cape of Good Hope; but we found them to be so many rocks.’ These rocks
he could not have examined very closely; for there can be little doubt
that they were the anthills described by Pelsart as being ‘so large,
that they might have been taken for the houses of Indians.’
“The land near the sea coast is described as equally sandy with the
parts before visited, and producing, amongst its scanty vegetation,
nothing for food. No stream of fresh water was seen, nor could any, fit
to drink, be procured by digging.
“Quitting this inhospitable shore, Captain Dampier weighed his anchor on
September 5th, with the intention of seeking water and refreshments
further on to the north-eastward. The shoals obliged him to keep at a
considerable distance from the land, and finally, when arrived at the
latitude of 16 degrees, 9 minutes, to give up his project, and direct
his course for Timor.”
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