But We Had Not The Opportunity To See Whether These,
As The Former, Wanted Two Of Their Fore-Teeth.
We saw a great many places where they had made fires, and where
there were commonly three or four boughs stuck up to windward of
them; for the wind, (which is the sea-breeze), in the day-time blows
always one way with them, and the land-breeze is but small.
By
their fire-places we should always find great heaps of fish-shells
of several sorts; and it is probable that these poor creatures here
lived chiefly on the shell-fish, as those I before described did on
small fish, which they caught in wires or holes in the sand at low
water. These gathered their shell-fish on the rocks at low water
but had no wires (that we saw), whereby to get any other sorts of
fish; as among the former I saw not any heaps of shells as here,
though I know they also gathered some shell-fish. The lances also
of those were such as these had; however, they being upon an island,
with their women and children, and all in our power, they did not
there use them against us, as here on the continent, where we saw
none but some of the men under head, who come out purposely to
observe us. We saw no houses at either place, and I believe they
have none, since the former people on the island had none, though
they had all their families with them.
Upon returning to my men I saw that though they had dug eight or
nine feet deep, yet found no water. So I returned aboard that
evening, and the next day, being September 1st, I sent my boatswain
ashore to dig deeper, and sent the seine within him to catch fish.
While I stayed aboard I observed the flowing of the tide, which runs
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 fathom; and here the flood runs
south-east by south till the last quarter; then it sets right in
towards the shore (which lies here south-south-west and north north-
east) and the ebb runs north-west by north. When the tides
slackened we fished with hook and line, as we had already done in
several places on this coast; on which in this voyage hitherto we
had found but little tides; but by the height, and strength, and
course of them hereabouts, it should seem that if there be such a
passage or strait going through eastward to the great South Sea, as
I said one might suspect, one would expect to find the mouth of it
somewhere between this place and Rosemary Island, which was the part
of New Holland I came last from.
Next morning my men came aboard and brought a runlet of brackish
water which they had got out of another well that they dug in a
place a mile off, and about half as far from the shore; but this
water was not fit to drink. However, we all concluded that it would
serve to boil our oatmeal, for burgoo, whereby we might save the
remains of our other water for drinking, till we should get more:
and accordingly the next day we brought aboard four hogsheads of it:
but while we were at work about the well we were sadly pestered with
the flies, which were more troublesome to us than the sun, though it
shone clear and strong upon us all the while very hot. All this
while we saw no more of the natives, but saw some of the smoke of
some of their fires at two or three miles distance.
The land hereabouts was much like the port of New Holland that I
formerly described; it is low, but seemingly barricaded with a long
chain of sand-hills to the sea, that lets nothing be seen of what is
farther within land. At high water the tides rising so high as they
do, the coast shows very low: but when it is low water it seems to
be of an indifferent height. At low water-mark the shore is all
rocky, so that then there is no landing with a boat; but at high
water a boat may come in over those rocks to the sandy bay, which
runs all along on this coast. The land by the sea for about five or
six hundred yards is a dry sandy soil, bearing only shrubs and
bushes of divers sorts. Some of these had them at this time of the
year, yellow flowers or blossoms, some blue, and some white; most of
them of a very fragrant smell. Some had fruit like peascods, in
each of which there were just ten small peas; I opened many of them,
and found no more nor less. There are also here some of that sort
of bean which I saw at Rosemary Island: and another sort of small
red hard pulse, growing in cods also, with little black eyes like
beans. I know not their names, but have seen them used often in the
East Indies for weighing gold; and they make the same use of them at
Guinea, as I have heard, where the women also make bracelets with
them to wear about their arms. These grow on bushes; but here are
also a fruit like beans growing on a creeping sort of shrub-like
vine. There was great plenty of all these sorts of cod-fruit
growing on the sand-hills by the sea side, some of them green, some
ripe, and some fallen on the ground: but I could not perceive that
any of them had been gathered by the natives; and might not probably
be wholesome food.
The land farther in, that is, lower than what borders on the sea,
was so much as we saw of it, very plain and even; partly savannahs
and partly woodland.
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