[147]. Captain Cook’s account of the natives of Van Diemen’s Land, in this chapter, no doubt proves that they differ, in many respects, as he says, from the inhabitants of the more northerly parts of the east coast of New Holland, whom he met with in his first voyage. It seems very remarkable, however, that the only woman any of his people came close to in Botany Bay, should have her hair cropped short; while the man who was with her, is said to have had the hair of his head bushy, and his beard long and rough. See Vol. II. p. 87. of this Edition. Could the natives of Van Diemen’s Land be more accurately described, than by saying that the hair of the men’s heads is bushy, and their beards long and rough, and that the women’s hair is cropped short? So far north, therefore, as Botany Bay, the natives of the east coast of New Holland seem to resemble those of Van Diemen’s Land in this circumstance.
[148]. Vol. III. chap. vii.
[149]. Vol. II. p. 167. of this Edition of Cook’s Voyages.
[150]. Ibid. p. 159.
[151]. Tom. ii. p. 211. 12mo. Planche xvii.
[152]. Iter Palæstinum.
[153]. Tasman, when in the bay of Frederick Henry, adjoining to Adventure Bay, found two trees, one of which was two fathoms, and the other two fathoms and a half in girth, and sixty or sixty-five feet high, from the root to the branches. See his Voyage, in Harris’s Collection, Campbell’s Edition, vol. i. p. 326.
[154]. The ingenious Author of Récherches sur les Américains, illustrates the grounds of this assertion in the following satisfactory manner: “C’est quelque chose de surprenant, que la foule des idiomes, tous variés entr’eux, que parlent les naturels de l’Amérique Septentrionale. Qu’on réduise ces idiomes à des racines, qu’on les simplifie, qu’on en sépare les dialectes et les jargons dérivés, il en resulte toujours cinq ou six langues-mères, respectivement incomprehensibles. On a observé la même singularité dans la Sibérie et la Tartarie, où le nombre des idiomes, et des dialectes, est également multiplié; et rien n’est plus commun, que d’y voir deux hordes voisines qui ne se comprennent point. On rétrouve cette même multiplicité de jargons dans toutes les Provinces de l’Amérique Méridionale.” [He might also have included Africa.] “Il y a beaucoup d’apparence que la vie sauvage, en dispersant les hommes par petites troupes isolées dans des bois épais, occasione nécessairement cette grande diversité des langues dont le nombre diminue à mesure que la société, en rassemblant les barbares vagabonds, en forme un corps de nation. Alors l’idiome le plus riche, ou le moins pauvre en mots, devient dominant, et absorbe les autres.” Tom. i. p. 159, 160.
[155]. Dampier seems to be of this opinion. Vol. iii, p. 104, 125.
[156]. We find Mr. Anderson’s notions on this subject conformable to those of Mr. Marsden, who has remarked, “that one general language prevailed (however mutilated and changed in the course of time) throughout all this portion of the world, from Madagascar to the most distant discoveries eastward; of which the Malay is a dialect, much corrupted or refined by a mixture of other tongues. This very extensive similarity of language indicates a common origin of the inhabitants; but the circumstances and progress of their separation are wrapped in the darkest veil of obscurity.” History of Sumatra, p. 35.