On shore, palms yielding "cabbages" were found, which proved to be a grateful supply of vegetable food, and they even met with clumps of wild bananas yielding small fruit with nice-tasting pulp, but full of hard black seeds. "As I was walking this morning at a little distance from the ship", wrote Cook in his journal, "I saw myself one of the animals which had been so often described. It was of a light mouse colour, and in size and shape very much resembled a greyhound. It had a long tail also.... I should have taken it for a wild dog if instead of running it had not leapt like a hare or bird." It was, in fact, a kangaru. They also saw two animals like dogs (dingoes), of a straw colour. There were very large fruit-eating bats, "as big as a partridge", with wide-stretching black wings. At last, after they had been many days on shore, they succeeded in getting into touch with the natives, who were more amenable to reason than the savages farther south. Their skin was dark chocolate, the hair was black, in some cases lank and in others curly, but never woolly like the Papuans. Their bodies were painted with streaks of red and white, the features of their faces were agreeable, and their voices were soft and tuneful. One of them wore the bone of a bird 5 or 6 inches long thrust through the gristle between the nostrils. However, the kindness shown them led these people on to acts of great presumption. They began to pester the party on land with requests for food, and, when this was denied them, gave way to transports of rage, and finally, seizing brands from a fire, set light to the dry grass. Having in this way nearly succeeded in destroying the camp, it was necessary to shoot at them with muskets. With great difficulty peace was made, which was perhaps fortunate, for the seamen, straying out in all directions in search of food, encountered parties of native Australians who might otherwise have killed them had they not been reassured as to the intentions of the white men. In one such instance a seaman found himself alone in a little camp of four natives, who had kindled a fire and were broiling a bird over it together with part of a kangaru. The seaman, being unarmed, was very much alarmed, but had the presence of mind to assume a placid demeanour. He sat down with the people and offered them his knife, but after examining it they returned it to him politely. They examined his hands and face and clothes with the greatest attention, and then made signs that he could go away if he wished, a leave which he hastened to take. It was invariably found, however, that presents given to these people, whether cloth, beads, trinkets, or iron, were thrown away as useless lumber. The expedition also obtained a specimen of phalanger, a marsupial often misnamed the Australian opossum.[87] These phalangers or cuscuses had already been sent home to European collections from the Dutch East Indies, and had been described and