a desire to learn.  In return for the pleasure they had afforded, Mr. Flinders gave them some worsted caps, and a pair of old blanket trousers, with which they were much gratified.  Several other natives soon made their appearance, probably those who had carried away the nets.  It was some little time before they could overcome their dread of approaching the strangers with their firearms; but, encouraged by the three who were with them, they came up, and a general song and dance was commenced.  Their singing was not confined to one air; they gave three, but the first was the most pleasing.

Of those who last came, three were remarkable for the largeness of their heads; and one, whose face was very rough, had much more the appearance of a baboon than of a human being.  He was covered with oily soot; his hair matted with filth; his visage, even among his fellows, uncommonly ferocious; and his very large mouth, beset with teeth of every hue between black, white, green, and yellow, sometimes presented a smile, which might make one shudder.

Among other friendly interchanges, they learned the names of Mr. Flinders and his party.  Him they called ’Mid-ger Plindah,’ and his brother Samuel they named Dam-wel.  Three of their names were Yel-yel-bah, Ye-woo, and Bo-ma-ri-go.  The resemblance of this last to Porto Rico imprinted it on Mr. Flinders’s recollection.  When these people joined the party, the strangers were shown, and their names severally told to them, until they had gotten the pronunciation.  This ceremony was reciprocal, and accorded with what Captain Cook had said before of an inhabitant of Endeavour river, ’he introduced the strangers by name, a ceremony which upon such occasions was never omitted.’  The difference of latitude between these two places is 11 degrees 39 minutes, or seven hundred miles.

[* In these particularities, their language resembled that of the Port Jackson natives.  It may be seen in the former account, that Mr. Ball was named Mid-ger Bool, and that none of them could ever pronounce the letters f or s.  Even Bennillong, on his return from England, still used caw-be for coffee.  Many other instances might be adduced.]

With regard to the comparative size of these people, they were evidently somewhat lower than the common standard of Englishmen, and perhaps less in every respect, except in the disproportionate size of the head; and indeed this was not general.  In the features of the face, particularly in the elongation of the lower ones, in the small calf to the leg, and the curve of the thigh, they bore a general resemblance to the natives of Port Jackson; but there was not one in all this group, whose countenance had so little of the savage, or the symmetry of whose limbs expressed strength and agility, so much, as those of their companion Bong-ree.