“What the ancient poets tell us of Fauns and Satyrs living in hollow trees, is here realized.  Some wretched constructions of sticks, covered with bark, which do not even deserve the name of huts, were indeed found near the shore in the bay; but these seemed only to have been erected for temporary purposes; and many of their largest trees were converted into more comfortable habitations.  These had their trunks hollowed out by fire, to the height of six or seven feet; and that they take up their abode in them sometimes, was evident from the hearths, made of clay, to contain the fire in the middle, leaving room for four or five persons to sit round it.[138] At the same time, these places of shelter are durable; for they take care to leave one side of the tree sound, which is sufficient to keep it growing as luxuriantly as those which remain untouched.”

[Footnote 138:  Tasman, when in the bay of Frederick Henry, adjoining to Adventure Bay, found two trees, one of which was two fathoms, and the other two fathoms and a half in girth, and sixty or sixty-five feet high, from the root to the branches.—­See his Voyage, in Harris’s Collection, Campbell’s Edition, vol. i. p. 326.—­D.]

“The inhabitants of this place are, doubtless, from the same stock with those of the northern parts of New Holland.  Though some of the circumstances mentioned by Dampier, relative to those he met with on the western coast of this country, such as their defective sight, and want of fore-teeth, are not found here; and though Hawkesworth’s account of those met with by Captain Cook on the east side, shews also that they differ in many respects; yet still, upon the whole, I am persuaded that distance of place, entire separation, diversity of climate, and length of time, all concurring to operate, will account for greater differences, both as to their persons and as to their customs, than really exist between our Van Diemen’s Land natives, and those described by Dampier, and in Captain Cook’s first voyage.  This is certain, that the figure of one of those seen in Endeavour River, and represented in Sidney Parkinson’s Journal of that voyage, very much resembles our visitors in Adventure Bay.  That there is not the like resemblance in their language, is a circumstance that need not create any difficulty.  For though the agreement of the languages of people living distant from each other, may be assumed as a strong argument for their having sprung from one common source, disagreement of language is by no means a proof of the contrary."[139]

[Footnote 139:  The ingenious author of Recherches sur les Americains illustrates the grounds of this assertion in the following satisfactory manner:  “C’est quelque chose de surprenant, que la foule des idiomes, tous varies entr’eux, que parlent les naturels de l’Amerique Septentrionale.  Qu’on reduise ces idiomes a des racines qu’on les simplifie, qu’on en separe les dialectes et les jargons derives, il en resulte toujours cinq