DAMPIER 317 



One of their "camps" was visited, but it proved to Manners and 

 be " only a fire with a few boughs before it " to keep customs - 

 off the wind. " They have no houses, but live in the open 

 air, without any covering ; the earth being their bed, 

 and the heaven their canopy. . . . Their only food is a 

 small sort of fish, which they get by making weirs of stone 

 across little coves or branches of the sea ; every tide 

 bringing in the small fish, and there leaving them a prey 

 to these people, who constantly attend there to search 

 for them at low-water. This small fry I take to be the 

 top of their fishery. . . . What Providence has bestowed 

 on them they broil on the coals and eat it in common. 

 Sometimes they get as many fish as makes them a plentiful 

 banquet ; and at other times they scarce get everyone 

 a taste. . . . When they have eaten, they lie down till 

 the next low-water, and then all that are able march out, 

 be it night or day, rain or sun, 'tis all one ; they must attend 

 the weirs, or else they must fast. For the earth affords 

 them no food at all. There is neither herb, root, pulse, 

 nor any sort of grain for them to eat that we saw ; nor 

 any sort of bird or beast that they can catch, having 

 no instruments wherewithal to do so." Their weapons 

 were wooden swords and a sort of lance. 



Dampier illustrates the degree of their civilisation An 

 by an incident that happened in the course of a visit to lllustratlon 

 a small island on which camped aboXit forty of them. 

 There were some wells of water there, and the Englishmen 

 proposed to take some of it on board in small six-gallon 

 barrels. It occurred to them that it would be trouble- 

 some to carry the barrels, and that it would be a good 

 plan to bribe the natives to carry them by a present of 

 " finery." So they put on one " an old pair of breeches," 



coast, he noted that they differed from Dampier's Westerners, especially 

 in two respects, (i) Their " absolute colour " seemed to be rather 

 chocolate than black, and (2) the hair " in some was as lank as a 

 European's, in others a little crisped, but in none resembling the wool 

 of the negroes." Banks thought that, for once, Dampier might have 

 been careless in his observations. The description of Stokes, and later 

 explorers, however, show that Dampier was substantially right. The 

 colour of the Westerners is black and their hair is often " curled " or 

 "frizzled," though not, we are told, woolly like a negro's. 



