NATIVE SMOKES. 93 



joint J* in this particular they differed from the natives 

 seen in Roebuck Bay, amongst whom the practice 

 of this mutilation did not prevail. They were, I 

 think, travelling to the southward, at the time they 

 fell in with us, for they had no females among the 

 party, by whom they are usually at other times 

 accompanied. The circumstance of their being 

 unarmed may seem to militate against the supposi- 

 tion that they were travelling, but it is to be borne 

 in mind that these people universally consider the 

 absence of offensive weapons as the surest test of 

 peaceful intentions, and would therefore, if they 

 desired to maintain a friendly footing with the new 

 comers, most probably deposit their arms in some place 

 of concealment before they made themselves visible. 



The coast seems pretty thickly populated between 

 Roebuck and Beagle bays ; as the smoke from 

 native fires was constantly to be seen, but in all 

 cases these signs of human existence were confined 

 to the neighbourhood of the sea. The fishing 

 proved unsuccessful, so we were fain to content our- 

 selves without the promised addition to our evening 

 meal. We found the tide rise here 18 feet. 



In the afternoon we reached another anchorage, 

 some ten miles further to the N.E. The coast along 



* A similar custom was noticed by Captain Cook at the 

 Sandwich Islands, where it was regarded as a propitiatory sacri- 

 fice to the Eatooa, to avert his anger ; and not to express, as the 

 same mutilation does in the Friendly Islands, grief for the loss 

 of a friend. 



