AUSTRALIANS OF CAPE YORK. 295 



cast trade was blowing very strongly, and we ran 

 rapidly round Attagor, and up between Damood and 

 'Food, We anchored at night under Dove Island, 

 and the next day ran to Evans* Bay, Cape York, 

 to get some more water. 



June 6 to 8. — We remained these three days 

 at Evans' Bay completing our water, where we 

 found a party of five Australians. These men were 

 very quiet and friendly, but contrasted most un- 

 favourably for themselves with our friends the 

 Erroobians. It was now indeed for the first time 

 that I became fully aware of the great difference be- 

 tween the two races, which is both a physical and 

 mental one. These five men had the spare thin- 

 legged, lanky build of all the Australian people. 

 Their colour was of a more sooty black than 

 the islanders, who are of a reddish or yellowish 

 brown. The hair of these Australians, however, 

 was like that of the European race, equally dif- 

 fused, rather fine, and either straight, or com- 

 monly waving in broad open curls. Among the 

 islanders the hair invariably grows in tufts or 

 pencils. On the limbs and body these tufts are 

 a little separated from each other, the skin around 

 them being devoid of hair, but on the head the 

 tufts appear to grow close together, and are only 

 apparent by eacli twisting itself into a lock, which, 

 when long, becomes a narrow pipe-like ringlet. 

 When short, the hair of the head looks frizzled, 

 but is not so woolly as that of the negro. The hair 



