26 Of the Checks to Population in the Bk. i. 



presented the islands of Andaman in the East as 

 inhabited by a race of savages still lower in 

 wretchedness even than these. Every thing that 

 voyagers have related of savage life is said to fall 

 short of the barbarism of this people. Their 

 whole time is spent in search of food: and as 

 their woods yield them few or no supplies of 

 animals, and but little vegetable diet, their prin- 

 cipal occupation is that of climbing the rocks, or 

 roving along the margin of the sea, in search of a 

 precarious meal of fish, which, during the tem- 

 pestuous season, they often seek for in vain. 

 Their stature seldom exceeds five feet; their 

 bellies are protuberant, with high shoulders, large 

 heads, and limbs disproportionably slender. 

 Their countenances exhibit the extreme of wretch- 

 edness, a horrid mixture of famine and ferocity ; 

 and their extenuated and diseased figures plainly 

 indicate the want of wholesome nourishment. 

 Some of these unhappy beings have been found 

 on the shores in the last stage of famine.* 



In the next scale of human beings we may 

 place the inhabitants of New Holland, of a part 

 of whom we have some accounts that may be de- 

 pended upon, from a person who resided a con- 

 siderable time at Port Jackson, and had frequent 

 opportunities of being a witness to their habits 

 and manners. The narrator of Captain Cook's 

 first voyage having mentioned the very small 



* Symes's Embassy to Ava, cli. i. p. 129, and Asiatic Researches, 

 vol. iv. p. 401. 



