POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
21 
Wesleyan minister^ and to experience^ during this period, 
the friendship and kind attentions of the Rev. S. Mars- 
den, senior chaplain of the colony, the steady and inde¬ 
fatigable friend of Missions and Missionaries in the 
South Seas. He resided at Paramatta, where we passed 
the greater part of our stay in New South Wales very 
pleasantly, in the family of the late Mr. Hassel, formerly 
a Missionary in Tahiti. Mr. and Mrs. Hassel landed at 
Matavai from the ship Duff, in 1797^ hut had retired to 
Port Jackson, in consequence of an attack made by the 
natives on the Missionaries. 
In company with Mr. S. O. Hassel, I made several ex¬ 
cursions into the interior of the country, where we fre¬ 
quently saw the inhabitants more completely in a state of 
nature, than those we met with in the vicinity of the 
principal towns. The aborigines are but thinly spread 
over that part of New Holland bordering on the colony ; 
and though the population has been estimated at three 
millions, I am disposed to think, that, notwithstanding 
the geographical extent of the country, it does not con¬ 
tain so many inhabitants. Their appearance is gene¬ 
rally repulsive, their faces looking more deformed from 
their wearing a skewer through the cartilage of the 
nose. Their colour is dark olive, or black, and their 
hair rather crisped than woolly. In proportion to 
the body, their limbs are small and weak, while their 
gait is exceedingly awkward. Excepting in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of the chief towns, they were usually destitute 
of clothing, though armed with a spear or lance, with 
which at a great distance they are fatal marksmen. 
They are represented as indolent, treacherous, and cruel. 
Agriculture is unknown among them, although the 
indigenous productions of the country yield them 
