The country round Caledon Bay, especially at the heads of the two branches, is generally low land; Mount Caledon and the hills of the south side are of granite, and this stone is found in some other parts; but at Point Alexander the basis is a sand stone, more or less impregnated with iron, and at Point Middle it is almost iron ore. A piece of this last stone carried the needle of the theodolite entirely round; yet the bearings taken from thence did not show any difference from those at Mount Caledon, and from those upon Point Alexander, taken from a hillock of sea sand, they did not differ more than half a degree.
So far as our examination went the soil is poor, being either sandy or stony, with a small mixture in some places of vegetable earth; notwithstanding which both the grass and wood were luxuriant, owing to the abundance of rain which had lately fallen, and to the warmth of the climate: in the dry season, I should judge the country would be almost burnt up. The casuarina was plentiful in the sandy places, and the eucalyptus amongst the rocks, where it reached a tolerable size; the wild nutmeg was found upon Point Middle, and there alone; our apple, the new species of eugenia, grew on Point Alexander and elsewhere, and also a few other plants bearing small fruits of little use. Foot marks of the kangaroo were seen in different places, but none of the animals, nor indeed any quadruped; and birds seemed to be rare, both in the woods and on the shores.
The natives of Caledon Bay are the same race of men as those of Port Jackson and King George's Sound, places at nearly the two opposite extremities of Terra Australis;* in personal appearance they were behind some tribes we had seen, but the difference did not go beyond what a less abundant supply of food might produce. All those who came to the tents had lost the upper front tooth on the left side, whereas at Port Jackson it is the right tooth which is knocked out at the age of puberty; whether the women undergo the same operation, contrary to the usage at Port Jackson, we had no opportunity of knowing, having seen only one female, and that at a distance. This girl wore a small piece of bark, in guise of a fig leaf, which was the sole approximation to clothing seen among them. Above the elbow the men usually wore a bandage of net work, in which was stuck a short piece of strong grass, called tomo, and used as a tooth pick; but the most remarkable circumstance in their persons was, that the whole of them appeared to have undergone the Jewish and Mahometan rite of circumcision. The same thing was before noticed in a native of Isle Woodah, and in two at Wellesley's Islands; it would seem, therefore, to be general on the west side of the Gulph of Carpentaria; but with what view it may be done, or whence the custom were received, it is not in my power to state. No such practice was found on the South or East Coasts, nor was it observed in the natives of the islands in Torres' Strait, who however, go naked as the Australians.
[* In Van Diemen's Land, according to captain Cook and succeeding visitors, and on the North-west Coast, according to Dampier, the inhabitants have woolly hair; in which particular they are different from the race above mentioned. Which of them may be aborigines can be only conjectured, until the interior of the new continent shall be explored.]
No other weapons than spears were seen amongst these people; but they were not unacquainted with bows and arrows. It is probable that they have bark canoes, though none were seen, for several trees were found stripped, as if for that purpose; yet when Bongaree made them a present of the canoe brought from Blue-mud Bay, they expressed very little pleasure at the gift, and did not seem to know how to repair it.
That this bay had before received the visits of some strangers, was evinced by the knowledge which the natives had of fire arms; they imitated the act of shooting when we first landed, and when a musket was fired at their request, were not much alarmed. A quantity of posts was lying near the water, which had been evidently cut with iron instruments; and when we inquired of the inhabitants concerning them, they imitated with their hands the motion of an axe cutting down a tree, and then stopping, exclaimed Poo! Whence we understood that the people who cut the wood had fire arms. This was all that could be learned from the natives; but from the bamboos and partitions of frame work found here, similar to those at Pellew's Group, they were doubtless the same Asiatic nation, if not the same individuals, of whom so many traces had been seen all the way from the head of the gulph. The propensity shown by the natives to steal, especially our axes, so contrary to all I have known and heard of their countrymen, is not only a proof that they had been previously visited by people possessing iron implements, but from their audacity it would appear, that the effect of fire arms was either not very certain in the hands of the strangers, or had seldom been resorted to in the punishment of aggression; and from the circumstance of the Indians bringing us a few berries, as a recompense for the last stolen axe, it should seem that they had been accustomed to make very easy atonements for their thefts. I have some hope that those who may follow us will not be robbed, at least with so much effrontery; and at the same time, that the inhabitants of Caledon Bay will not avoid, but be desirous of further communication with Europeans.
I do not know that the language at any two parts of Terra Australis, however near, has been found to be entirely the same; for even at Botany Bay, Port Jackson, and Broken Bay, not only the dialect, but many words are radically different;* and this confirms one part of an observation, the truth of which seems to be generally admitted: that although similarity of language in two nations proves their origin to be the same, yet dissimilarity of language is no proof of the contrary position. The language of Caledon Bay may therefore be totally different to what is spoken on the East and South Coasts, and yet the inhabitants have one common origin; but I do not think that the language is absolutely and wholly different, though it certainly was no better understood by Bongaree than by ourselves. In three instances I found a similarity: the personal pronoun of Port Jackson, gni-a (I), was used here, and apparently in the same sense; when inquiry was made after the axe, the natives replied "Yehangeree py," making signs of beating; and py signifies to beat, in the Port-Jackson language; the third instance was of the lad Woga calling to Bongaree in the boat, which after he had done several times without being answered, he became angry, and exclaimed Bongaree-gah! in a vehement manner, as Bongaree himself would have done in a similar case. For the following list of words I am principally indebted to Mr. Brown, naturalist to the expedition; who remarked that the word here for eye was very nearly the same with that used, both at King George's Sound and Port Jackson, to express the same organ.
[* This multiplicity of tongues in the same country presents an extraordinary contrast with the islands in the Great Ocean, where, from the Sandwich Isles near the northern tropic, to the furthest extremity of New Zeeland in 47° south, the language is almost every where the same; and with so little difference of dialect, that the several inhabitants have not much difficulty to understand each other.]
[LIST OF ENGLISH WORDS AND THOSE USED BY THE PEOPLE AT CALEDON BAY TO EXPRESS THE SAME IDEA.--not included in ebook.]
In collecting the words some errors may possibly have been made, either from misunderstanding the natives or from their deceiving us intentionally; for after the trick put upon Mons. Labillardière at the Friendly Islands, in the words given him for the high numerals, they are always to be suspected.