[Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia by Phillip Parker King]@TWC D-Link bookNarrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia CHAPTER 9 10/27
The bodies of these people are however considerably more scarified than their countrymen to the southward, and their teeth are perfect.
One of our visitors had a fillet of plaited grass, whitened by pigment, bound round his head, and this was the only ornament worn by them. The spear was of very rude form and seemed to be a branch of the mangrove-tree, made straight by the effect of fire: it did not appear that they used the throwing-stick. The soil of the hills of Cape Clinton is of good quality but the country at the back of the port appears to be chiefly marshy land.
Mr.Hunter sowed orange and lemon seeds in various places in the neighbourhood of the cape; the climate of this part is so well adapted for those trees that, if it were possible to protect them from the fires of the natives, they would soon grow up, and prove a valuable refreshment to voyagers. Captain Flinders describes the soil at the northern part of the port to be "either sandy or stony, and unfit for cultivation."* The country around Mount Westall is also formed of a shallow soil, but the low lands are covered with grass and trees, and the ravines and sides of the hills are covered with stunted pine-trees which were thought to be the Araucaria excelsa. (*Footnote.
Flinders volume 2 page 38.) The country between Port Bowen and Shoalwater Bay is low and overrun with mangroves; but Captain Flinders* speaks more favourably of the land about the latter bay, particularly in the vicinity of his Pine Mount, where he describes the soil as being fit for cultivation.
At Upper Head in Broad Sound the country appears to be still better;** in addition to which the great rise of tides might be of considerable importance to that place, should a settlement there ever be contemplated. (*Footnote.
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