The conclusions at which Cook arrived in regard to the aborigines of Australia were singularly accurate, considering that he had only landed about five times on the coast of New South Wales and Queensland, and had in addition only the scanty records of Dampier and the Dutch seamen regarding the western coast of Australia. He argues from the utter savagery of these coast natives, and from the Dutch accounts of the desolate, parched nature of the south and west coasts of Australia, that the interior is probably mainly desert and uninhabitable. Their houses, which were seen at their best at Botany Bay, were just high enough for a man to sit upright in, and not large enough for him to lie down at full length. They were built with pliable rods as thick as a man's finger, in the form of an oven, the two ends being stuck into the ground. These withes were then covered with palm leaves and broad pieces of bark, and the door was nothing but a large hole at one end. In other words, they were precisely like the houses built by the pygmies in some parts of the Congo Forest. Inside these huts they slept three or four in number, coiled up. Their only implements seemed to be made of bark or netted fibre. Pieces of bark were tied at the two ends with some lithe twig which served as a handle, and these bark basins or buckets would then hold water. In addition the natives roughly knitted together long fibres into bags, which they slung by a string over the head. But their fish hooks were very neatly made of shell, and some exceedingly small. For striking turtle they had a barbed wooden harpoon, the detachable end of which was fastened into a staff of light wood, to which was tied a line of fibrous string, while the other end of the bush rope was fastened to the harpoon. After striking the turtle the barbed end of this weapon would become detached in the animal's body, while the staff, being of light wood, rose to the surface and served as a float by which the victim could be traced, and also as a drag on his speed. They were able to make string from some fibre which ranged from the thickness of a half-inch rope to the fineness of a hair, and argued some skill on their part. Their cooking was done by broiling on coals or baking in a hole with the help of hot stones. They had no nets for catching fish, though they used a hook and line and also the harpoon. The boomerang was almost their only weapon for bringing down birds. They produced fire by whirling a drilling-stick into a piece of soft wood, getting a spark in less than two minutes. "We have often seen one of them running along the shore, to all appearance with nothing in his hand, who, stooping down for a moment at the distance of every 50 or 100 yards, left fire behind him, as we could see first by the smoke and then by the flame amongst the driftwood and other litter. We had the curiosity to examine one of these planters of fire when he set off, and we saw him wrap up a small spark in dry