213 
Caledon Bay.-] TERRA AUSTRALIS. 
but they were not unacquainted with bows and arrows. It is 
probable that they have bark canoes, though none were seen, for 
several trees were found stripped, as if for that purpose ; yet when 
Bongaree made them a present of the canoe brought from Blue-mud 
Bay, they expressed very little pleasure at the gift, and did not seem 
to knowhow to repair it. 
That this bay had before received the visits of some strangers, 
was evinced by the knowledge which the natives had of fire arms ; they 
imitated the act of shooting when we first landed, and when a musket 
was fired at their request, were not much alarmed. A quantity of 
posts was lying near the water, which had been evidently cut with 
iron instruments ; and when we inquired of the inhabitants concern- 
ing them, they imitated with their hands the motion of an axe cutting 
down a tree, and then stopping, exclaimed Poo ! Whence we under- 
stood that the people who cut the wood had fire arms. This was all 
that could be learned from the natives ; but from the bamboos and 
partitions of frame work found here, similar to those at Pellew’s 
Group, they were doubtless the same Asiatic nation, if not the same 
individuals, of whom so many traces had been seen all the way from 
the head of the gulph. The propensity shown by the natives to steal, 
especially our axes, so contrary to all I have known and heard of 
their countrymen, is not only a proof that they had been previously 
visited by people possessing iron implements, but from their audacity 
it would appear, that the effect of fire arms was either not very cer- 
tain in the hands of the strangers, or had seldom been resorted to in 
the punishment of aggression ; and from the circumstance of the In- 
dians bringing us a few berries, as a recompense for the last stolen 
axe, it should seem that they had been accustomed to make very 
easy atonements for their thefts. I have some hope that those who 
may follow us will not be robbed, at least with so much effrontery ; 
and at the same time, that the inhabitants of Caledon Bay will not 
avoid, but be desirous of further communication with Europeans. 
I do not know that the language at any two parts of Terra 
1803 . 
February, 
