NORTH AUSTRALIA. 
218 
was published daring the following year in the " Trans- 
actiooB of the Royal Geographical Society^"* fiom which 
it has been extracted. 
" The manners and customs of the native inhabitants of 
a newly- explored country present an interesting^ subject 
of inquiry; and by placing on record, at the earliest 
period of our acquaintance svith. them, the distinctive 
features of the different tribes of which they are com- 
posed, many peculiarities interesting to the researches of 
the geographer and the ethnologist may be preserved^ 
which the progress of civilization, and the consequent 
increase of intercourse between them, would tend to 
obliterate. Several of our earlier travellers in Australia 
appear to have felt the importance of this subject, and 
have paid due attention to it. With the tribes, however, 
of the northern coast, of whom I propose to speak, we 
have, till lately, been less familiar than with others; and 
these possess a peculiar interest, from the circumstance of 
the country they inhabit being in the close vicinity of the 
islands of the Indian Archipelago. These islands, again 
— that is to say, the groups more immediately adjacent 
to Port Essington — are occuj)ied by a portion of the 
hnman family concei-ning which very little was known 
previous to our occupation of the north coast, when the 
measures that became necessary for establishing the 
security of commercial relations in that quarter, brought 
» Vol. xn, p. 239. 
