in the sand, the marks of wild-beasts' feet, resemoling those of a tiger, or some such creature. I gathered also some gum from the trees, and likewise some lac. I observed smoke in several places; however, we did nothing more than set up a post, on which every one cut his name or his mark, and upon which I hoisted a flag."

The celebrated English buccaneer, William Dampier, visited Australia in 1688, and again in 1691. The journal that he kept displays not only a quick and clear observation of all he saw, but a remarkable truthfulness of narration. "New Holland," he says, "is a vast tract of land, but whether an isle or part of the continent, is unknown hitherto. This much I am sure of, that it joins neither to Asia, Africa, nor America, hereabouts. It was here very low and sandy ground, the points only excepted, which are rocky, and some isles in this bay. This part had no fresh water, except what was dug; but divers sorts of trees, and among the rest the dragon-tree, which produces the gum-dragon, or dragon's blood. We saw neither fruittrees, nor so much as the track of any animal of the bigness, at least, of a large mastiff dog; some few land birds, indeed, but none larger than a blackbird, and scarcely any water-fowl. Neither does the sea afford any fish, except tortoises and the manatus, both of which it yields in great plenty. The inhabitants are the most miserable wretches in the universe, having no houses, no garments, except a piece of the bark of a tree tied like a girdle round the waist; no sheep, poultry, or fruits; and they feed upon a few fish, cockles, mussels, and periwinkles. They are tall, straight-bodied, and thin, with small, long limbs. They have great round foreheads, and great brows. Their eyelids are always half-closed, to keep the flies out of their eyes; these being so troublesome here that no fanning will keep

them from attacking the face; and without the assistance of both hands to ward them off, they will creep into one's nostrils, and even mouth, if the lips are not shut very close.

"The people have large bottle noses, full lips, and wide mouths. The two fore-teeth of their upper jaw are wanting in all of them, men and women, old and young; whether they draw them out, I know not; neither have they any beards. They are long-visaged, and of an unpleasing aspect, having not a graceful feature in their faces. Their hair is black, short, and curled, like that of the negrce, and not long and lank, like that of the common Indians. The colour of their skin, both of their faces and the rest of their body, is coal-black. They live in companies, of twenty or thirty, men, women, and children together. Their only food is a sort of small fish, which they catch by making weirs of stones across little coves or branches of the sea; every tide bringing in the small fish, and then leaving them for a prey to these people, who constantly attend to search for them at low water. The old people that are not able to stir abroad by reason of their age, and the tender infants, wait their return; and what Providence has bestowed on them they presently broil on the coals, and eat in common. Sometimes they get as many fish as yield to them a plentiful banquet, sometimes they scarcely get every one a tasting; but, little or much, each one, whether able to go out for it or not, has his share. When they have eaten, they lie down till the next low water, and then all that are able march out: be it night or day, rain or sunshine, it is all one; they must attend the weirs, or they must fast, for the earth affords them no food at all. There is neither herb, root, pulse, nor any sort of grain as far as we saw; nor any bird or beast that they can catch, having no instruments for it. I saw no iron, nor any other metal there."

On his second visit to Australia, Dampier touched at that deep bay to which he gave the name of Shark's Bay. "The coast," he says, "here abounds with rocks and shoals. The land is pretty high, but the shore steep to the sea. The mould is sandy by the sea-side, producing a large sort of samphire, which bears a white flower. Farther in, the mould is reddish, mixed with a sort of sand, producing some grass, plants, and shrubs. The grass grows in great tufts as big as a bushel, here and there a tuft, and is intermixed with a great deal of heath, much of the kind we have growing on our commons in England. Of trees and shrubs here are divers sorts, but none above ten feet high, their trunks being about three feet round, and five or six feet high before you come to the branches, which are bushy, and composed of small twigs there, spreading abroad, though thick-set and full of leaves, which are mostly long and narrow. The colour of the leaves is on the one side whitish, and on the other green. Some of these trees are sweet-scented, and reddish within the bark, like sassafras, but darker; and most of them have, at this time, either blossoms or berries on them. The blossoms of the different sorts of trees are of divers colours, as red, white, yellow, but mostly blue; and these smell very sweet and fragrant. There were but few land fowls; I saw none but eagles, of the larger sort of birds, but five or six sorts of small birds. The larger sorts of these were no bigger than larks, some no bigger than wrens, all singing with great variety of fine shrill notes; and we saw some of their nests, with young ones in them."

This time he came upon great numbers of water-fowl, with their young ones; for it was then spring, you will mark, in this part of the world. He observed ducks, curlews, galdens, crab-catchers, cormorants, gulls, pelicans,

eagles, white parrots, and other birds that he had never seen anywhere else. He noticed what seemed to him a species of raccoon, or jumping animals; which, as he does not remark upon their size, were probably kangaroo rats, or wallabies. He saw also very ugly iguanas, which, he says, had, instead of a tail, a knob like a second head, but were without eyes or mouth, and looked as if they were made to run either forward or backward.

It was Dampier who, in a subsequent voyage, rescued Alexander Selkirk from the solitary life which he had led for four years and four months upon the island of Juan Fernandez, and whose adventures and hardships were the origin of the world-famous story of Robinson Crusoe.

In his last visit to Australia, he had a skirmish with the natives, with whom he had sought to come to parley, that he might learn where to procure a supply of fresh water. They only threw their lances at the English; and when a gun was fired to frighten them, they signified, by their gestures, that they regarded the demonstration as a harmless bravado, and tossing their heads, kept exclaiming, "Pooh, pooh, pooh!"

CAPTAIN COOK DISCOVERS BOTANY BAY.

APRIL 19, 1770.

Ar six o'clock this evening, we shortened sail, and brought up for the night, having a point of land in sight, which I called Cape Howe; and at four o'clock next morning, we made sail along shore to the northward. At daybreak on the 28th, we discovered a bay which seemed to be well sheltered from all winds, and into which I deter

At noon we observed

mined therefore to go with the ship. smoke upon the shore, and directed our glasses to the spot, where we soon discovered ten people, who, upon our nearer approach, left their fire and retired to a little eminence, whence they could conveniently observe our motions. Soon after, two canoes, each having two men on board, came to the shore just under the eminence, and the men joined the rest on the top of it. The pinnace, which had been sent ahead to sound, now approached the place, upon which all the natives retired farther up the hill, except one, who hid himself among some rocks near the landingplace. As the pinnace proceeded along the shore, most of the people took the same route, and kept abreast of her at a distance. When she came back, the master told us that in a cove a little within the harbour, some of them had come down to the beach, and invited him to land by many signs and words, of which he knew not the meaning; but that all of them were armed with long pikes, and a wooden weapon shaped like a scimitar. The natives who had not followed the boat, seeing the ship approach, began to use threatening gestures and brandish their weapons; two of them, in particular, made a very singular appearance, for their faces seemed to have been dusted with a white powder, and their bodies painted with broad streaks of the same colour, which, passing obliquely over their breasts and backs, looked not unlike the cross-belts worn by our soldiers; the same kind of streaks were also drawn round their legs and thighs, like broad garters. Each of these men held in his hand the weapon that had been described to us as like a scimitar, which appeared to be about two feet and a half long, and they seemed to talk to each other with great earnestness.

The place where our ship was anchored was abreast of