H4 C O O K’s V O Y A G E. 
and ribbons were ornaments of the fame kind, but of a more 
regular form, and more ihowy materials. They had indeed 
no idea of traffic, nor could we comtjiunicate any to them : 
they received the things that we gave them ; but never ap- 
peared to underhand our figns when we required a return. 
The fame indifference which prevented them from buying 
what we had, prevented them alfo from attempting to flea! : 
If they had coveted more they would have been lefs honeft ; 
for when we refufed to give them a turtle, they were enraged, 
and attempted to take it by force, and we had nothing elfe 
upon which they fet the leaf! value ; for, as I have before ob- 
ferved, many of the things that we had given them, we found 
left negligently about in the woods, like the play-things of 
children, which pleafe only while they are new. Upon their 
bodies we faw no marks of difeafe or fores, but large fears in 
irregular lines, which appeared to be the remains of wounds 
which they had inflidled upon themfelves with fome blunt in- 
firument, and which we underilood by figns to have been me- 
morials of grief for the dead. 
They appeared to have no fixed habitations, for we faw 
nothing like a town or village in the whole country. Their 
houfes (if houfes they may be called) feem to be formed with 
lefs art and induftry than any we had feen, except the wretched 
hovels at Terra del Fuego, and in fome refpefts they are infe- 
rior even to them. At Botany Bay, where they were belt, 
they where juft high enough for a man to fit upright in ; but 
not large enoug-h for him to extend himfelf in his whole length 
in any direction : they are built with pliable rods about as 
thick as a naan’s finger, in the form of an oven, by flicking 
the tv.'o ends into the ground, and then covering them w ith 
palm leaves, and broad pieces of bark : the door is nothing 
but a large hole at oiie end, oppofite to which the fire is made, 
as we perceived by the afhes. Under thefe houfes, or flieds, 
they fieep, coiled up with their heels to their head ; and in 
this pofition one of them will hold three or four perfons. As 
we advanced northward, and the climate became warmer, we 
found thefe flreds ftill more flight: they w'ere built, like the 
others, of twigs, and covered with bark ; but none of them 
were more than four feet deep, and one fide wasintirely open : 
the clofe fide w'as always oppofed to the courfe of the prevail- 
ing wind, and oppofite to the open fide was the fire, probably 
more as a defence from the mufquitg^than the cold. Under 
thefe hovels it is probable, that they thruft only their heads, 
and the upper part of their bodies, extending their feet to- 
wards the fire. They were fet up occafionally by a wandering 
hord, in any place that would furnifh them for a time with 
fubfiftence, and left behind them when (after it was exhauft- 
od) they went away : but in places w here they remained only 
