68 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



in command of two successive expeditions from Batavia, that we owe our first knowledge of 

 Australasia. In that year Tasman came in sight of the large island, which he called Van 

 Diemen's Land, after his patron. He guessed that the island was inhabited, but saw no 

 natives. The first meeting of the Aborigines with Europeans took place on March 4, 1772. 

 When the French navigator Marion de Fresne arrived at the spot at which the Dutchman 

 had touched, the blacks came down to the French boats with confidence; but unfortunately there 

 was some misunderstanding, and one of them was shot, and the rest fled. The first Englishman 

 who approached the shores of Tasmania was Captain Furneaux, of the Resolution, who in 

 March 1773, having been accidentally separated from the ship of his commander, Captain 

 Cook (then on his second voyage of discovery), coasted along the south and east shores. He 

 saw none of the people, but he says the country " appeared to be thickly inhabited, as there 

 was a continual fire along the shore as we sailed." 



On January 26, 1777, Captain Cook, then on his third voyage, entered Adventure Bay. 

 The inhabitants were found to be distinctly below the English standard of stature. The 

 average height of twenty-three men gave 5 feet 3J inches; of twenty-nine women the average 

 was 4 feet 11-J inches. The colour of the skin was dark brown, or chocolate colour, sometimes 

 approaching black. The hair was very characteristic of their race which is believed to be 

 Papuan or Melanesian, though modified by long isolation. Instead of being straight or wavy, 

 as with the Australians, it was finely curled or frizzled; when short, it had the appearance 

 commonly called "woolly," but when allowed to grow long it went into small ringlets, which 

 when covered with grease and ochre gave the appearance of a sort of mop of red strings 

 hanging over the head and neck. The men had good beards and whiskers. The eyes were 

 small but bright, and sunk beneath heavy, prominent brows. The nostrils were large and 

 open; the nose was short and prominent, the upper part being deeply sunk under the 

 projecting ridge connecting the eyebrows, and the lower part very wide. The brain-capacity 

 was small compared with the general dimensions of the skull and face; the projection of the 

 lower jaws was very marked. The people lived "like beasts of the forests, in roving parties, 

 without arts of any kind, sleeping in summer like dogs, under the hollow sides of trees, or in 

 wattled huts made with the lower branches of evergreen shrubs, stuck in the ground at small 

 distances from each other, and meeting together at the top." Captain Cook's ship surgeon, 

 Mr. Anderson, tells us that they "had little of that fierce or wild appearance common to people 

 in their situation, but, on the contrary, seemed mild and cheerful, without reserve or jealousy of 



strangers. But," he adds, "their not expressing 

 that surprise which one might have expected 

 from their seeing men so much unlike themselves, 

 and things to which, we were well assured, they 

 had been hitherto utter strangers, their in- 

 difference for our presents, and their general 

 inattention, were sufficient proofs of their not 

 possessing any acuteness of understanding." 

 Cook's intercourse with these people was of a 

 perfectly friendly nature. Their treatment by 

 whites in the present century is, unfortunately, 

 a very different story. 



In the year 1804 the English took pos- 

 session of the island, and changed its name to 

 Tasmania. They colonised it from New South 

 Wales. At Restdown, afterwards Risdon, a 

 settlement was formed by a military party and 

 convict labourers. It was here, in 1804, that 



w.Beatt*} [Hobart. the first serious conflict took place, and through 



" TKUOANINA," WILLIAM LANNEY'S WIFE. a foolish misunderstanding. A party of several 



