Aug. 30, being in latitude 18 deg. 21’, and the weather fair, captain Dampier steered in for the shore; and anchored in 8 fathoms, about three-and-half leagues off.  The tide ran “very swift here; so that our nun-buoy would not bear above the water to be seen.  It flows here, as on that part of New Holland I described formerly, about five fathoms.”

He had hitherto seen no inhabitants; but now met with several.  The place at which he had touched in the former voyage “was not above forty or fifty leagues to the north-east of this.  And these were much the same blinking creatures (here being also abundance of the same kind of flesh flies teizing them), and with the same black skins, and hair frizzled, tall and thin, etc., as those were.  But we had not the opportunity to see whether these, as the former, wanted two of their fore teeth.”  One of them, who was supposed to be a chief, “was painted with a circle of white paste or pigment about his eyes, and a white streak down his nose, from his forehead to the tip of it.  And his breast, and some part of his arms, were also made white with the same paint.”

Neither bows nor arrows were observed amongst these people:  they used wooden lances, such as Dampier had before seen.  He saw no houses at either place, and believed they had none; but “there were several things like haycocks, standing in the savannah; which, at a distance, we thought were houses, looking just like the Hottentots’ houses at the Cape of Good Hope; but we found them to be so many rocks.” *

[* Dampier could not have examined these rocks closely; for there can be little doubt that they were the ant hills described by Pelsert as being “so large., that they might have been taken for the houses of Indians.”]

The land near the sea-coast is described as equally sandy with the parts before visited, and producing, amongst its scanty vegetation, nothing for food.  No stream of fresh water was seen, nor could any, fit to drink, be procured by digging.

Quitting this inhospitable shore, captain Dampier weighed his anchor on September 5, with the intention of seeking water and refreshments further on to the north-eastward.  The shoals obliged him to keep at a considerable distance from the land; and finally, when arrived at the latitude 16 deg. 9’, to give up his project, and direct his course for Timor.

CONCLUSIVE REMARKS.

With the voyage of Dampier terminates the information gained of the Western Coasts, previously to the year 1801.  Monsieur de St. Alouarn had, indeed, seen some points or islands, in the year 1772, when he commanded the French flute Le Gros Ventre; but the particulars are not generally known, being, in all probability, of little importance.