Australis, for the purposes of careening their vessel, and procuring
refreshments. They made the land in the latitude of 16° 50', due south
from a shoal whose longitude is now known to be 122¼° east. From thence,
they ran along the shore, N. E. by E. twelve leagues, to a bay or
opening, where a convenient place was found for their purpose. Dampier's
description of the country and inhabitants of the place, where he
remained from Jan. 5. to March 12., is contained in the account of his
voyages, Vol. I. page 462 to 470; and renders it unnecessary to do more
than to mark its coincidence or disagreement with what is said, in the
above note from Tasman, of the inhabitants and country near the same part
of the coast.

Dampier agrees in the natives being "a naked, black people, with curly
hair," like that of the negroes; but he says they have "a piece of the
rind of a tree tied like a girdle about their waists, and a handful of
long grass, or three or four green boughs full of leaves, thrust under
their girdle, to cover their nakedness." Also, "that the two fore teeth of
the upper jaw are wanting in all of them, men and women, old and young:
neither have they any beards;" which circumstances are not mentioned in
the note from Tasman. Dampier did not see either bows or arrows amongst
them; but says, "the men, at our first coming ashore, threatened us with
their lances and swords; but they were frightened by firing one gun,
which we did purposely to scar them." Of "their prows made of the bark of
trees," he saw nothing. On the contrary, he "espied a drove of these men
swimming from one island to another; for _they have no boats, canoes, or
bark logs_." The English navigator is silent as to any dangers upon the
twelve leagues of coast seen by him; but fully agrees in the scarcity of
the vegetable productions, and in the circumstance of the natives using
no houses.