n Indians. The colour of their skins, both of their faces and the
rest of their body, is coal-black, like that of the negroes of Guinea.*

(*Footnote. The natives of Hanover Bay, with whom we communicated, were
not deprived of their front teeth, and wore their beards long; they also
differed from the above description in having their hair long and curly.
Dampier may have been deceived in this respect, and from the use that
they make of their hair, by twisting it up into a substitute for thread,
they had probably cut it off close, which would give them the appearance
of having woolly hair like the negro.)

"They have no sort of clothes, but 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 small green boughs full of leaves, thrust under their girdle, to
cover their nakedness.

"They have no houses, but lie in the open air without any covering; the
earth being their bed, and the heaven their canopy. Whether they cohabit
one man to one woman, or promiscuously, I know not; but they do live in
companies, twenty or thirty men, women, and children together. Their only
food is a small sort of fish, which they get by making weirs of stone
across little coves or branches of the sea; every tide bringing in the
small fish, the there leaving them for a prey to these people, who
constantly attend there to search for them at low water. This small fry I
take to be the top of their fishery: they have no instruments to catch
great fish, should they come; and such seldom stay to be left behind at
low water: nor could we catch any fish with our hooks and lines all the
while we lay there. In other places at low water they seek for cockles,
mussels, and periwinkles. Of these shell-fish there are fewer still; so
that their chief dependence is upon what the sea leaves in their wares;
which, be it much or little, they gather up, and march to the places of
their abode. There the old people that are not able to stir abroad by
reason of their age, and the tender infants, wait their return; and what
Providence has bestowed on them, they presently broil on the coals, and
eat it in common. Sometimes they get as many fish as makes them a
plentiful banquet; and at other times they scarce get every one a taste;
but be it little or much that they get, every one has his part, as well
the young and tender, the old and feeble, who are not able to go abroad,
as the strong and lusty. When they