210 cook's first voyage august, 



and some of the shell-fish, none of them are known 

 in Europe : most of them are palatable, and some are 

 very delicious. Upon the shoals and reef there are 

 incredible numbers of the finest green turtle in the 

 world, and oysters of various kinds, particularly the 

 rock-oyster and the pearl-oyster. The gigantic 

 cockles have been mentioned already ; besides which 

 there are sea-crayfish, or lobsters, and crabs ; of these 

 however we saw only the shells. In the rivers and 

 salt creeks there are alligators. 



The only person who has hitherto given any 

 account of this country or its inhabitants is Dampier ; 

 and though he is, in general, a writer of credit, yet 

 in many particulars he is mistaken. The people 

 whom he saw were indeed inhabitants of a part 

 of the coast very distant from that which we vi- 

 sited ; but we also saw inhabitants upon parts of 

 the coast very distant from each other ; and their 

 being a perfect uniformity in person and customs 

 among them all, it is reasonable to conclude* that 

 distance in another direction has not considerably 

 broken it. 



The number of inhabitants in thiscountryappearsto 

 be very small in proportion to its extent. W&never saw 

 so many as thirty of them together but oncfl^ and that 

 was at Botany Bay, when men, women, and children, 

 assembled upon a rock to see the ship pass by : when 

 they manifestly formed a resolution to engage us, 

 they never could muster above fourteen or fifteen 

 fighting men, and we never saw a number of their 

 sheds or houses together that could accommodate a 

 larger party. It is true, indeed, that we saw only 

 the sea-coast on the eastern side ; and that, between 

 this and the western shore, there is an immense tract 

 of country wholly unexplored : but there is great 

 reason to believe that this immense tract is either 

 wholly desolate, or at least still more thinly inhabited 

 than the parts we visited. It is impossible that the 

 inland country should subsist inhabitants at all seasons 



