We had not been long landed, before about twenty of them, men and boys, joined us, without expressing the least sign of fear or distrust.  There was one of this company conspicuously deformed, and who was not more distinguishable by the hump upon his back, than by the drollery of his gestures, and the seeming humour of his speeches, which he was very fond of exhibiting, as we supposed, for our entertainment.  But, unfortunately, we could not understand him; the language spoken here being wholly unintelligible to us.  It appeared to me to be different from that spoken by the inhabitants of the more northern parts of this country, whom I met with in my first voyage; which is not extraordinary, since those we now saw, and those we then visited, differ in many other respects.[130] Nor did they seem to be such miserable wretches as the natives whom Dampier mentions to have seen on its western coast.[131]

[Footnote 130:  The most striking difference seems to be with regard to the texture of the hair.  The natives whom Captain Cook met with at Endeavour River in 1769, are said, by him, to have “naturally long and black hair, though it be universally cropped short.  In general it is straight, but sometimes it has a slight curl.  We saw none that was not matted and filthy.  Their beards were of the same colour with the hair, and bushy and thick.”

It may be necessary to mention here, on the authority of Captain King, that Captain Cook was very unwilling to allow that the hair of the natives now met with in Adventure Bay was woolly, fancying that his people, who first observed this, had been deceived, from its being clotted with grease and red ochre.  But Captain King prevailed upon him afterward to examine carefully the hair of the boys, which was generally, as well as that of the women, free from this dirt; and then he owned himself satisfied that it was naturally woolly.  Perhaps we may suppose it possible, that he himself had been deceived when he was in Endeavour River, from this very circumstance, as he expressly says, that “they saw none that was not matted and filthy.”—­D.]

[Footnote 131:  And yet Dampier’s New Hollanders, on the western coast, bear a striking resemblance to Captain Cook’s at Van Diemen’s Land, in many remarkable instances:—­

1st, As to their becoming familiar with the strangers.

2dly, As to their persons; being straight-bodied and thin, their skin black, and black, short, curled hair, like the negroes of Guinea, with wide mouths.

3dly, As to their wretched condition, having no houses, no garment, no canoes, no instrument to catch large fish; feeding on broiled muscles, cockles, and periwinkles; having no fruits of the earth; their weapons a straight pole, sharpened and hardened at the end, &c. &c.

The chief peculiarities of Dampier’s miserable wretches are, 1st, Their eye-lids being always half closed, to keep the flies out, which were excessively troublesome there; and, 2dly, Their wanting the two fore-teeth of the upper jaw, and their having no beards.  See Dampier’s Voyages, vol. i. p. 464, &c.  There seems to be no reason for supposing that Dampier was mistaken in the above account of what he saw.—­D.]