124 NATIVES AT CAPE YORK. 



consisting chiefly of sheep, with instructions from 

 the Colonial Government to await at Port Albany 

 the arrival of the expedition. The live stock were 

 landed by our boats on Albany Island, where a 

 sheep pen was constructed, and a well dug", — ^but 

 the water was too brackish for use. A sufficient 

 supply however had previously been found in a 

 small cave not far off, where the schooner's boat 

 could easily reach it. 



I shall now proceed to give an account of the 

 neig-hbourhood of Cape York, derived from the 

 present and previous visits, as a place which must 

 eventually become of considerable importance — and 

 first of the aborigines : — 



On the day of our arrival at Cape York, a larg'e 

 party of natives crossed over in five canoes under 

 sail from Mount Adolphus Island, and subsequently 

 their numbers increased until at one time no less than 

 150 men, women, and children, were assembled at 

 Evans' Bay. But their stay was short, probably 

 on account of the difficulty of procuring' food for so 

 larg'e an assemblag-e, and the g'reater part dispersed 

 along- the coast to the southward. While collecting' 

 materials for a vocabulary,* I found that several 



* In illustration of the difficulty of framing so apparently 

 simple a document as a vocabulary, and particularly to shew how 

 one must not fall into the too common mistake of putting down 

 as certain every word he gets from a savage, however clearly he 

 may suppose he is understood, I may mention that on going 

 over the different parts of the human body, to get their names by 

 pointing to them, I got at different times and from different 



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