and a well dug, but the water was too
brackish for use. A sufficient supply however had previously been found
in a small cave not far off, where the schooner's boat could easily reach
it.

I shall now proceed to give an account of the neighbourhood of Cape York,
derived from the present and previous visits, as a place which must
eventually become of considerable importance--and first of the
aborigines:

NATIVES AT CAPE YORK.

On the day of our arrival at Cape York, a large party of natives crossed
over in five canoes under sail from Mount Adolphus Island, and
subsequently their numbers increased until at one time no less than 150
men, women, and children, were assembled at Evans Bay. But their stay was
short, probably on account of the difficulty of procuring food for so
large an assemblage, and the greater part dispersed along the coast to
the southward. While collecting materials for a vocabulary,* I found that
several dialects were spoken, but I failed then to connect them with
particular tribes or even find out which, if any, were the resident ones.
Among these were two or three of the Papuan race, from some of the
islands of Torres Strait. It appeared to me that a constant friendly
intercourse exists between the natives of the southern portion of Torres
Strait and those of the mainland about Cape York, which last, from its
central position, is much frequented during their occasional, perhaps
periodical migrations. This free communication between the races would
account for the existence in the vocabulary I then procured at Cape York
of a considerable number of words (at least 31 out of 248) identical with
those given by Jukes in his vocabularies of Darnley Island and Masseed,
especially the latter.

(*Footnote. In illustration of the difficulty of framing so apparently
simple a document as a vocabulary, and particularly to show how one must
not fall into the too common mistake of putting down as certain every
word he gets from a savage, however clearly he may suppose he is
understood, I may mention that on going over the different parts of the
human body, to get their names by pointing to them, I got at different
times and from different individuals--for the shin-bone, words which in
the course of time I found to mean respectively, the leg, the shin-bone,
the skin, and bone in general.)

The physical characteristics of these Australians seen at Cape York
differ in no respect from those of the same race which