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The physical characteristics of the natives who inhabited the 

 eastern shores of Australia in those days, as far as any note was 

 taken of them, appeared to be in all respects similar to those of 

 the tribes who have occupied the coast line in other parts of the 

 continent. The men were tall and well formed. They had 

 broad foreheads, wide mouths, small piercing eyes, flattened 

 noses, and thick black hair. Their chests were deep, but their 

 lower limbs thin and ill-developed as compared with those of 

 average Europeans. They were remarkable for the beauty and 

 strength of their teeth, for the boldness of their carriage, 

 and for the comparative smallness of their hands and feet. 

 Although perfectly black, they were different in appearance 

 from the natives of Africa, wanting the woolly hair and the 

 great thickness of lips for which the latter are remarkable. 

 The women were smaller than the men : in appearance worse 

 looking, and with frames not so well developed. The aborigines 

 all round the Australian coastline bear the same description, 

 and are supposed to have sprung from one source. 



This supposition is to a great extent confirmed by a general 

 uniformity of customs, a similar uniformity in the laws which 

 govern the relationships of individuals to members of their 

 own tribes, and to those of the tribes to which their parents 

 belong, and also by the uniformity in those laws which apply 

 to the possession and occupation of territory. Their weapons 

 are generally similar, everywhere consisting of spears, shields, 

 boomerangs, wooden axes and waddies, or clubs. The Botany 

 Bay natives had bows and arrows. These are uncommon. In 

 some portions of Australia the spears are pointed with flint or 

 stone heads and barbs, and the natives in some places use flint 

 knives and stone hatchets or tomahawks, the heads of which 

 are fixed into cleft sticks, and secured with a rude kind of cord 

 firmly kept together by some resinous substance. On the 

 seashore canoes made of bark are commonly used for fishing, 

 but only where the indigenous trees are large and abundant, 

 and access to the beach is easy. 



The languages, or rather the dialects, which are or were in 

 use in those portions of the country which have been opened 

 out by the progress of settlement afford strong presumptive 

 evidence of a common origin. Although far from complete 

 they are sufficiently numerous to furnish satisfactory basis of 

 comparison, which have led those who have investigated the 

 question to the belief that they are no more than modifications 

 of one form of speech which some peculiar customs have called 

 into existence. One of these is the practice of never uttering 

 the names of dead persons. Now as the names of the natives 

 are mostly the names of some natural features of the places in 

 which the bearers are born or after some creature or special 



