King George's Sound.} TERRA AUSTRALIS. 
" seemed, by this means, to have a head at each end ; and, which 
" may be reckoned a fourth difference, the legs, also, seemed all 
" four of them to be fore legs, being all alike in shape and length, and 
" seeming by the joints and bendings to be made as if they were to 
" go indifferently either head or tail foremost. They were speckled 
" black and yellow like toads, and had scales or knobs on their 
" backs like those of crocodiles. They are very slow in motion ; 
" and when a man comes nigh them they will stand and hiss, not 
" endeavouring to get away. Their livers are also spotted black 
" and yellow ; and the body when opened hath a very unsavoury 
" smell. The guano's I have observed to be very good meat ; and 
" I have often eaten of them with pleasure; but though I have eaten 
" of snakes, crocodiles, and alligators, and many creatures that look 
" frightfully enough, and there are but few I should have been 
'■ afraid to eat of, if pressed by hunger, yet I think my stomach 
" would scarce have served to venture upon these New Holland 
" guano's, both the looks and the smell of them being so offensive." 
The animal is certainly of a singular form ; but it is scarcely neces- 
sary to say, that the merit of Dampier's description does not consist 
in being strictly accurate. 
The fish caught with hook and line were principally small 
mullet, and an excellent kind of snapper, nearly the same as that 
called wollamai, by the natives of Port Jackson ; but these were 
larger, weighing sometimes as much as twenty pounds. 
Our frequent and amicable communication with the natives of 
this country has been mentioned. The women were, however, kept 
out of sight with seeming jealousy ; and the men appeared to suspect 
the same conduct in us, after they had satisfied themselves that the 
most beardless of those they saw at the tents were of the same sex 
with the rest. The belief that there must be women in the shin 
induced two of them to comply with our persuasion of getting into 
the boat, one morning, to go on board; but their courage failing, 
