[Early Australian Voyages by John Pinkerton]@TWC D-Link bookEarly Australian Voyages CHAPTER XXI: REMARKS UPON THE VOYAGE 50/148
as those were: but we had not the opportunity to see whether these, as the former, wanted two of their fore-teeth. We saw a great many places where they had made fires, and where there were commonly three or four boughs stuck up to windward of them; for the wind, (which is the sea-breeze), in the day-time blows always one way with them, and the land-breeze is but small.
By their fire-places we should always find great heaps of fish-shells of several sorts; and it is probable that these poor creatures here lived chiefly on the shell-fish, as those I before described did on small fish, which they caught in wires or holes in the sand at low water.
These gathered their shell-fish on the rocks at low water but had no wires (that we saw), whereby to get any other sorts of fish; as among the former I saw not any heaps of shells as here, though I know they also gathered some shell-fish.
The lances also of those were such as these had; however, they being upon an island, with their women and children, and all in our power, they did not there use them against us, as here on the continent, where we saw none but some of the men under head, who come out purposely to observe us.
We saw no houses at either place, and I believe they have none, since the former people on the island had none, though they had all their families with them. Upon returning to my men I saw that though they had dug eight or nine feet deep, yet found no water.
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