Western Coasts.] INTRODUCTION. Ivii 
" surprised the Dutch, who had landed twenty-five men ; but the tasman. 
" firing of guns frightened them so that they fled. Their prows are 1644 ' 
" made of the bark of trees : their coast is dangerous : there are 
" few vegetables : the people use no houses." 
" In 1 9° 35' S. long. 134° (about 120 0 , apparently ), the inhabitants 
" are very numerous, and threw stones at the boats sent by the 
" Dutch to the shore. They made fires and smoke all along the 
" coast, which, it was conjectured, they did to give notice to their 
" neighbours of strangers being upon the coast. They appear to live 
" very poorly ; go naked ; eat yams and other roots." 
The buccaneers with whom our celebrated navigator, William Dampie*. 
Dampier, made a voyage round the world, came upon the north- 
west coast of Terra Australis, for the purposes of careening their 
vessel, and procuring refreshments. They made the land in the 
latitude of 16° 50', due south from a shoal whose longitude is now 
known to be 122^° east. From thence, they ran along the shore, 
N. E. by E. twelve leagues, to a bay or opening, where a convenient 
place was found for their purpose. Dampier's description of the 
country and inhabitants of the place, where he remained from Jan. 5. 
to March 12., is contained in the account of his voyages, Vol. I. 
page 462 to 470 ; and renders it unnecessary to do more than to 
mark its coincidence or disagreement with what is said, in the above 
note from Tasman, of the inhabitants and country near the same 
part of the coast. 
Dampier agrees in the natives being " a naked, black people, with 
" curly hair," like that of the negroes ; but he says they have " a 
" piece of the rind of a tree tied like a girdle about their waists, and 
" a handful of long grass, or three or four green boughs full of 
" leaves, thrust under their girdle, to cover their nakedness." Also, 
" that the two fore teeth of the upper jaw are wanting in all of them, 
" men and women, old and young : neither have they any beards ;" 
which circumstances are not mentioned in the note from Tasman. 
vol. 1. I 
