[* See a plate of the natives in Phillip's Voyage.]
Some of the men wear a piece of wood or bone, thrust through the septum of the nose, which, by raising the opposite sides of the nose, widens the nostril, and spreads the lower part very much; this, no doubt, they consider as a beauty; most of those we had hitherto met, wanted the two foremost teeth on the right side of the upper jaw; and many of the women want the two lower joints of the little finger of the left hand, which we have not as yet been able to discover the reason or meaning of. This defect of the little finger we have observed in old women, and in young girls of eight or nine years old; in young women who have had children, and in those who have not, and the finger has been seen perfect in individuals of all the above ages and descriptions; they have very good teeth in general; their hair is short, strong, and curly, and as they seem to have no method of cleaning or combing it, it is therefore filthy and matted.
The men wear their beards, which are short and curly, like the hair of the head. Men, women, and children go entirely naked, as described by Captain Cook; they seem to have no fixed place of residence, but take their rest wherever night overtakes them: they generally shelter themselves in such cavities or hollows in the rocks upon the sea shore, as may be capable of defending them from the rain, and, in order to make their apartment as comfortable as possible, they commonly make a good fire in it before they lie down to rest; by which means, the rock all round them is so heated as to retain its warmth like an oven for a considerable time; and upon a little grass, which is previously pulled and dryed, they lie down and huddle together.
And here, we see a striking instance of the particular care of Providence for all his creatures. These people have not the most distant idea of building any kind of place which may be capable of sheltering them from the severity of bad weather; if they had, probably it would first appear in their endeavours to cover their naked bodies with some kind of cloathing, as they certainly suffer much from the cold in winter.
Their ignorance in building, is very amply compensated by the kindness of nature in the remarkable softness of the rocks, which encompass the sea coast, as well as those in the interior parts of the country: they are a soft, crumbly, sandy stone; those parts, which are most exposed to, and receive the most severity of the weather, are generally harder than such parts as are less exposed; in the soft parts time makes wonderful changes; they are constantly crumbling away underneath the harder and more solid part, and this continual decay leaves caves of considerable dimensions: some I have seen that would lodge forty or fifty people, and, in a case of necessity, we should think ourselves not badly lodged for a night. Wherever you see rocks in this country, either on the sea-shore, or in the interior parts, as they are all of this soft sandy kind, you are sure of finding plenty of such caves.
In the woods, where the country is not very rocky, we sometimes met with a piece of the bark of a tree, bent in the middle, and set upon the ends*, with a piece set up against that end on which the wind blows. This hut serves them for a habitation, and will contain a whole family; for, when the weather is cold, which is frequently the case in winter, they find it necessary to lie very close for the benefit of that warmth to which each mutually contributes a share. These bark huts, (if they deserve even the name of huts) are intended, as we have lately discovered, for those who are employed in hunting the kangaroo, opossums, or in short, any other animals which are to be found in the woods; for at certain seasons, when those animals are in plenty, they employ themselves frequently in catching them.
[* For an exact description and representation of this hut, see Governor Phillip's Voyage.]
As most of the large trees are hollow, by being rotten in the heart, the opossum, kangaroo rat, squirrel, and various other animals which inhabit the woods, when they are pursued, commonly run into the hollow of a tree: in order, therefore, to make sure of them, which they seldom fail in, when they find them in the tree, one man climbs even the tallest tree with much ease, by means of notches at convenient distances, that are made with a stone hatchet; when he is arrived at the top, or where there may be an outlet for the animal, he sits there with a club or stick in his hand, while another person below applies a fire to the lower opening, and fills the hollow of the tree with smoak; this obliges the animal to attempt to make its escape, either upwards or downwards, but whichever way it goes, it is almost certain of death, for they very seldom escape. In this manner they employ themselves, and get a livelihood in the woods.
They also, when in considerable numbers, set the country on fire for several miles extent; this, we have generally understood, is for the purpose of disturbing such animals as may be within reach of the conflagration; and thereby they have an opportunity of killing many. We have also had much reason to believe, that those fires were intended to clear that part of the country through which they have frequent occasion to travel; of the brush or underwood, from which they, being naked, suffer very great inconvenience. The fires, which we very frequently saw, particularly in the summer-time, account also for an appearance, which, when we arrived here, we were much perplexed to understand the cause of; this was, that two-thirds of the trees in the woods were very much scorched with fire, some were burnt quite black, up to the very top: as to the cause of this appearance we differed much in our opinions; but it is now plain, that it has ever been occasioned by the fires, which the natives so frequently make, and which we have seen reach the highest branches of the trees: we sometimes, upon our arrival here, conjectured that it proceeded from lightning, but upon looking farther, it appeared too general amongst the woods to have been occasioned by such an accident.
We had reason to believe, that the natives associate in tribes of many families together, and it appeared now that they have one fixed residence, and the tribe takes its name from the place of their general residence: you may often visit the place where the tribe resides, without finding the whole society there; their time is so much occupied in search of food, that the different families take different routs; but, in case of any dispute with a neighbouring tribe, they can soon be assembled.