PHRENOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT.

Their hair is always dark, sometimes straight and sometimes curled, and not unfrequently tied up behind; but we saw no instance of a negro, or woolly, head among them.  They wear the beard upon the chin, but not upon the upper lip, and allow it to grow to such a length as enables them to champ and chew it when excited by rage; an action which they accompany with spitting it out against the object of their indignation or contempt.  They have very overhanging brows, and retreating foreheads, large noses, full lips, and wide mouths:  in some cases they want the two foreteeth in the upper jaw, and while, in any one tribe in which the custom prevails, it seems to be unanimous, it does not appear to be, by any means, universally diffused along the whole north-western coast.  The unfavourable impression produced by the prevailing character of their physiognomy, is confirmed, if their phrenological conformation is taken into consideration; and certainly, if the principles of that science are admitted to be true, these savages are woefully deficient in all the qualities which contribute to man’s moral supremacy.  Let me, in justice, add, that while we found them ignorant and incurious to the last degree, they were generally suspicious rather than treacherous, and not insensible to such acts of kindness as they could comprehend.

Upon all this extent of coast, we saw no single instance of the use, or even existence, of any proa, or canoe; and my own opinion, strengthened by personal experience, and enforced by the authority of the most recent navigators, is, that the canoe is not used upon the north-west coast.  The negative evidence, at least, is strongly in favour of this presumption; for, while we saw the canoe in use in Clarence Strait—­the western boundary of the northern coast—­we saw nothing but the raft to the south of that point.  I cannot, therefore, avoid the conclusion, that, misled by the similarity of external appearance, Tasman mistook the raft of unbarked timber for a bark canoe, such as he may have seen upon other parts of the coast.

We had a return of the same kind of squall from the eastward, as we had experienced before our arrival in Roebuck Bay, and from which, since that time till now, we had luckily managed to escape.

January 24.

We were again at work by daylight, but were delayed, getting clear of the foul ground, lying off Cape Baskerville, on which we twice shoaled the water to three and five fathoms, five and seven miles West and by South from that headland.

BEAGLE BAY.