the largest men to be seen "in this
strait," from which it seemed the intrepid Venetian navigator had
sailed through this strait as early as the year 1272, when he made his
famous voyage round the world.

As we proceeded along the coast, the weather being now clear and fine,
we observed great stretches of country, flat and uninviting, upon which
there appeared to be no sign of life. Indeed, the whole of this
southern continent seems to be sparsely populated when compared with
the islands, upon most of which the native inhabitants are very
numerous. In this may be seen the hand of an all-wise Providence. In
the ages to come a white population will, no doubt, emigrate to New
Holland, and if this great continent was found to be densely populated
by a black people, it would be a work of great difficulty to overcome
them. Whereas, the aboriginal population being scant by reason of the
barren nature of the country, the task of colonization by the whites
would be easy. We often sailed for more than a week at a time along
this coast without seeing any sign of human habitation, and those
natives whom we did see were of so poor a description and appeared to
be so frightened of us and of our vessel as hardly to deserve the name
of humans.

And now we approached some cliffs, beyond which appeared a lofty range,
which, from our present position, and the bearings given on Marco
Polo's chart, Hartog declared to be the Ruby Mountains.

As we approached the cliffs, a bold headland, which stood between us
and a view of the coast beyond, assumed the appearance of a lion's
head. The resemblance was so striking that it appeared as if the mighty
hand of Nature had hewn a colossus from the living rock in the shape of
a lion to guard the entrance into this land.

Upon rounding this remarkable promontory, we found ourselves opposite a
beach bordered by a broad line of surf, which indicated that the water
here was very shallow for some distance from the shore. Both the surf
and the beach seemed to be alive with black children, so diminutive
were the forms who disported themselves in the breakers, or ran up and
down upon the sand with the eagerness and agility generally displayed
by boys at the seaside. As to the real ages of these people, however,
we were not left long in doubt. Four canoes put off from the shore and
came alongside. They were manned by twenty-five blacks, who,
notwithstanding their small stature, we could see at a glance we