It is worthy of remark, that the three natives seen at Horse-shoe Island had lost the two upper front teeth; and Dampier, in speaking of the inhabitants of the Northwest Coast, says, "the two front teeth of the upper jaw are wanting in all of them, men and women, old and young." Nothing of the kind was observed in the natives of the islands in Torres' Strait, nor at Keppel, Hervey's, or Glass-house Bays, on the East Coast; yet at Port Jackson, further south, it is the custom for the boys, on arriving at the age of puberty, to have one of the upper front teeth knocked out, but no more; nor are the girls subjected to the same operation. At Twofold Bay, still further south, no such custom prevails, nor did I observe it at Port Phillip or King George's Sound, on the South Coast; but at Van Diemen's Land it seems to be used partially, for M. Labillardière says (p. 320 of the London translation), "we observed some, in whom one of the middle teeth of the upper jaw was wanting, and others in whom both were gone. We could not learn the object of this custom; but it is not general, for the greater part of the people had all their teeth." The rite of circumcision, which seemed to have been practised upon two of the three natives at Horse-shoe Island, and of which better proofs were found in other parts of the Gulph of Carpentaria, is, I believe, novel in the history of Terra Australis.
On Sweers' Island, seven human skulls and many bones were found lying together, near three extinguished fires; and a square piece of timber, seven feet long, which was of teak wood, and according to the judgment of the carpenter had been a quarter-deck carling of a ship, was thrown up on the western beach. On Bentinck's Island I saw the stumps of at least twenty trees, which had been felled with an axe, or some sharp instrument of iron; and not far from the same place were scattered the broken remains of an earthen jar. Putting these circumstances together, it seemed probable that some ship from the East Indies had been wrecked here, two or three years back--that part of the crew had been killed by the Indians--and that the others had gone away, perhaps to the main land, upon rafts constructed after the manner of the natives. This could be no more than conjecture; but it seemed to be so supported by the facts, that I felt anxious to trace the route of the unfortunate people, and to relieve them from the distress and danger to which they must be exposed.
The advantages to be obtained here by a ship are briefly these: shelter against all winds in the Investigator's Road, wood for fuel, fresh water, and a tolerable abundance of fish and turtle; for to anticipate a little on the voyage, there are islands lying within reach of a boat from the Road, where the turtle are not disturbed by the Indians. Should it ever enter into the plan of an expedition, to penetrate into the interior of Terra Australis from the head of the Gulph of Carpentaria, the Investigator's Road is particularly well adapted for a ship during the absence of the travellers: the season most favourable to their operations would be in May, June, and July; but not so for the vessel, as the crew would probably be unable to procure turtle at that time. For a similar expedition from the opposite part of the South Coast, September, October, and November would seem to be most proper.
From the time of first arriving, to that of quitting Sweers' Island, the range of the thermometer on board the ship was between 81° and 90°, and on shore it might be 5° to 10° higher in the day time; the weather was consequently warm; but being alleviated by almost constant breezes either from sea or land, it was seldom oppressive; and the insects were not very troublesome. The mercury in the barometer ranged between 30.06 and 29.70 It stood highest with the winds from the sea, between north-east and north-west; and lowest when they blew gently off the land, between south-east and south-west, but most so from the latter direction. On the South Coast the winds from these points had produced a contrary effect: the mercury there stood lowest when the northern winds blew, and highest when they came from the southward; they coincided, however, so far, in that the sea winds raised, and the land winds depressed the mercury, the same as was observed at Port Jackson on the East Coast.
The latitude of Inspection Hill, from several single and two double observations, was 17° 8' 15" S.
Longitude from forty-two sets of lunar distances taken by lieutenant Flinders, the particulars of which are given in Table III. of the Appendix No. I. to this volume, 139° 44' 52" E.
The rates of the time keepers were deduced from morning's altitudes, taken with a sextant and artificial horizon at the shore under Inspection Hill, from Nov. 16 to 29; and the mean rates during this period, with the errors from mean Greenwich time at noon there on the 30th, were as under:
Earnshaw's No. 543, slow 2h 16' 29.51" and losing 14.74" per day.
Earnshaw's No. 520, slow 3h 52' 19.70" and losing 20.01" per day.
The longitude given by the time keepers, with the rates from Upper Head in Broad Sound, on our arrival Nov. 16, was by
No. 543, 140° 6' 35.2" east.
No. 520, 139° 47' 42.2" east.