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time made a careful exploration of the surrounding country.
"New Holland," he tells us, "is a very large tract of land. It is not yet determined whether it is an island or a main continent; but I am certain that it joins neither to Asia, Africa, nor America. The part of it that we saw is all low, even land, with sandy banks against the sea; only the points are rocky, and so are some of the islands in this bay."
Dampier's observations on the country and the natives are singularly correct, and have a particular value as giving the first definite and accurate information known concerning any portion of this vast continent.
The soil he describes as dry and sandy, "destitute of water, except you make wells; yet producing divers sorts of trees. But the woods are not thick nor the trees very big. Most of the trees we saw are dragon-trees, as we supposed, and these, too, are the largest trees of any there. They are about the bigness of our large apple-trees … and the rind is blackish and somewhat rough. … The other sorts of trees were not known by any of us. There was pretty long grass growing under the trees, but it was very thin. We saw no trees that bore fruit or berries."
Of the natives, whom he must have observed with very great care, he writes:—
The inhabitants of this country are the miserablest people in the world. The Hodmadods of Monomatapa, though a nasty people, yet for wealth are gentlemen to these, who have no houses and skin garments, sheep, poultry, and fruits of the earth, ostrich eggs, etc., as the Hodmadods have; and setting aside their human shape, they differ little from brutes. They are tall, straight-bodied, and thin, with small long limbs. Thev have great heads, round foreheads, and great brows. Their eyelids are always half-closed to keep the flies out of their eyes, they being so troublesome here that no fanning will keep them off. They will creep into one's nostrils, and mouth, too, if the lips are not shut very close. So that from their infancy, being thus annoyed with these insects, they do never open their eyes as other people, and therefore they cannot see far, unless they hold up their heads, as if they were looking at somewhat over them.
"They have great bottle noses, pretty full lips, and wide mouths. The two foreteeth of their upper jaw are wanting in all of them, men and women, old and young. They are long-visaged. … Their hair is black, short, and curled.
"They have no sort of clothes, but a piece of the rind of a tree tied like a girdle about their waists, and a handful of long grass, or three or four small green boughs full of leaves, thrust under their girdle to cover their nakedness.
"They have no houses, but lie in the open air without any covering, the earth being their bed and the heaven their canopy. … They do live in companies, twenty or thirty men, women, and children together. Their only food is a small sort of fish which they get by making weirs of stones across little coves or branches of the sea, every tide bringing in the small fish, and there leave them a prey to these people, who constantly attend there to search for them at low water. This small-fry I take to be the top of their fishery. They have no instruments to catch great fish should they come; and such seldom stay to be left behind at low water. … In other places at low water they seek for cockles, mussels, and periwinkles. Of these shell fish there are fewer still, so that their chiefest dependence is what the sea leaves in their weirs, which, be it much or little, they gather up and march to the places of their abode. There 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 it in common. Sometimes they get as many fish as makes them a plentiful banquet and at other times they scarce get everyone a taste; but be it little or much that they get, everyone has his part, as well the young and tender, the old and feeble, who are not able to go abroad as the strong and lusty. 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 shine, 'tis all one! They must attend the weirs or else they must fast, for the earth affords them no food at all. There is neither herb, root, pulse, nor any sort of grain for them to eat that we saw, nor any sort of bird or beast that they can catch, having no instruments where-withal to do so.
"I did not perceive that they did worship anything. These poor creatures have a sort of weapon to defend their ware or fight with their enemies, if they have any that will interfere with their poor fisheries. … Some of them had wooden swords; others had a sort of lance. The sword is a piece of wood shaped somewhat like a cutlass. The lance is a long straight pole, sharp at one end and hardened afterwards by heat. I saw no iron nor any other sort of metal."
After leaving Cygnet Bay Dampier desired to proceed on the voyage to England, but this did not meet with the approval of his companions. A quarrel occurred, and in the result the navigator with two others was put ashore on the Nicobar Islands. Here they suffered many trials and privations, but ultimately succeeded in getting away, and in 1691 Dampier arrived back in England after an absence of nearly nine years.
Some years passed without incident until the Dutch became anxious about the fate of a missing ship, the "Ridderschap van Holland," and in order to make certain Willem van Vlaming in 1696 was instructed by the