Chap.g A'nTIENT METAPHYSICS. f 



laid, of all the people that hrive^feeen difcovered, thofe \vh6'live with 



the leaft afTiftance either from nature or art. And, as they are fo 

 fimple in their way of living, they are as fimple in their manners, 

 being perfectly gentle, without fraud or deceit, and without any 

 thing favage or fierce in their difpofirions. They were, at firft, 

 afraid of Dampier and his people, and jBed from them ; but, when 

 they faw that there was no danger from them, they alTociated with 

 them in the moft friendly manner. N-- did they attempt to pilfer 

 or fteel any thing from Dampier; nor, n leed, did any of the inha- 

 bitants of New Holland do any thing o\ ii at kind, though nothing, 

 be more common among other barbaroub nations. 



The inhabitants of Antony Vaa Diemen' Land, which is upon 

 the fouth coaft of New Holland, do not live in a manner al- 

 together io fim.ple, as the iniiabltants of the other Diemen's 

 Land. Their country is not fo barren as that land, though they 

 live very much, as Captain Cook informs us, upon fhell-fiih. But 

 they have no ufe of canoes, any more than the inhabitants of North 

 Diemen*s Land. They have fome wretched huts made of iHcks 

 covered with bark ; but thefe are only eredled for temporary pur- 

 pofes. Their fixed habitations are ot a very extraordinary kind, 

 made by fire out of the trunks of trees, as Cc:ptain Cook tells us. 

 In thefe they lodge themfelves and families, and even make fires in 

 them for roafting their fifti ; but they preferve, very carefully, the 

 reft of the trunk of the tree. The people of Latium lived in that 

 way, when Saturn came am.ong them and introduced arts and civi- 

 lity, which gave rife to the fable, that they were 



— ex truncis et duro robore nati *. 



and, indeed, it was natural enough, that men who were not acquaint- 



* Sec Vol. III. of this work; p. 3 j* 



;uin3*Sfc: 



