body, or continent, with some openings like rivers; and
not like islands, as really they are."--"By what we saw of them, they
must have been a range of islands, of about twenty leagues in length,
stretching from E. N. E. to W. S. W.; and for ought I know, as far as to
those of Shark's Bay; and to a considerable breadth also, for we could
see nine or ten leagues in amongst them, towards the continent or main
land of New Holland, _if there be any such thing hereabouts_: And by the
great tides I met with awhile afterwards, more to the north-east, I had a
strong suspicion that here might be a kind of archipelago of islands; and
a passage, possibly, to the to the south of New Holland and New Guinea,
into the great South Sea, eastward."

Not finding fresh water upon such of the islands as were visited that
day, captain Dampier quitted his anchorage next morning, and "steered
away E. N. E., coasting along as the land lies." He seems to have kept
the land in sight, in the day time, at the distance of four to six
leagues; but the shore being low, this was too far for him to be certain
whether all was main land which he saw; and what might have been passed
in the night was still more doubtful.

Aug. 30, being in latitude 18 deg. 21', and the weather fair, captain Dampier
steered in for the shore; and anchored in 8 fathoms, about three-and-half
leagues off. The tide ran "very swift here; so that our nun-buoy would
not bear above the water to be seen. It flows here, as on that part of
New Holland I described formerly, about five fathoms."

He had hitherto seen no inhabitants; but now met with several. The place
at which he had touched in the former voyage "was not above forty or
fifty leagues to the north-east of this. And these were much the same
blinking creatures (here being also abundance of the same kind of flesh
flies teizing them), and with the same black skins, and hair frizzled,
tall and thin, etc., as those were. But we had not the opportunity to see
whether these, as the former, wanted two of their fore teeth." One of
them, who was supposed to be a chief, "was painted with a circle of
white paste or pigment about his eyes, and a white streak down his nose,
from his forehead to the tip of it. And his breast, and some part of his
arms, were also made white with the same paint."

Neither bows nor arrows were observed amongst these people: they used
wooden lances, such as Dampier had before seen. He saw no houses at
eith