The World of Waters, Or, A Peaceful Progress O'er the Unpathed SeaOsborne, David, Mrs. (Fanny)
General
The World of Waters, Or, A Peaceful Progress O'er the Unpathed Sea
Osborne, David, Mrs. (Fanny)
Geography -- Juvenile literature; Voyages and travels -- Juvenile literature
MR. WILTON. "As all land is surrounded by water, and continents
differ from islands merely in point of size, and as Australia or New
Holland is in extent as large as Europe, and ten times larger than
either Borneo or New Guinea, it is certainly more proportionate with
continents than with islands; and it seems reasonable to class
Australia with the former rather than with the latter."
MRS. WILTON. "With Australia we close our investigations. To use a
nautical expression, it is, compared with Europe and Asia, almost an
iron-bound coast. It possesses only two large indentations,--the
Gulf of Carpentaria on the north, and Spencer's Gulf on the south.
Shark's Bay, on the west, and Hervey's Bay, on the east, are the
next in size."
MR. WILTON. "New Holland was discovered by Paulmyer de Gonville.
That navigator sailed from Honfleur for the East Indies about the
middle of 1503, and experienced a violent storm off the Cape of Good
Hope, during which he lost his reckoning, and was driven into an
unknown sea. After sailing for some time, he observed birds flying
from the south, and, directing his course towards that quarter, he
soon fell in with land. This was thought to have been New Holland or
Australia."
MR. BARRAUD. "It is remarkable how extremely ignorant the
Australians are: they are certainly the lowest in intellect of the
human creation. The tribes on the western shores of Spencer's Bay
are positively ignorant of any method of obtaining fire: they say
that it originally came down from the north. Like the vestal
virgins, the women keep it constantly lighted, and carry it about
with them in firesticks when they travel: should it happen to go
out, they procure a fresh supply from a neighboring encampment. Then
their manners are so atrociously savage. Their mode of courtship is
one which I fancy would not become popular among English ladies. If
a chief, or any other individual, be in love, with a damsel of a
different tribe, he endeavors to waylay her; and if she be surprised
in any quiet place, the ambushed lover rushes upon her, beats her
about the head with his 'waddie' till she becomes senseless, when he
drags her in triumph to his hut, and thenceforth she is his lawful
wife!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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