CHAP. III. Of the Checks to Population in the lowest Stage of Human Society. THE wretched inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego have been placed by the general confent of voyagers at the bottom of the fcale of human beings. Of their domestic habits and manners, however, we have few accounts. Their barren country, and the miferable state in which they live, have prevented any intercourfe with them that might give fuch information; but we cannot be at a lofs to conceive the checks to population among a race of favages, whofe very appearance indicates them to be half starved, and who, fhivering with cold, and covered with filth and vermin, live in one of the moft inhofpitable climates in the world, without having fagacity enough to provide themselves with fuch conveniencies as might mitigate its feverities, and render life in fome measure more comfortable. • Cook's First Voy. vol. ii. p. 59. Next to these, and almoft as low in genius and refources, have been placed the natives of Van Diemen's land'; but fome late accounts have reprefented the islands of Andaman in the eaft as inhabited by a race of favages ftill lower in wretchedness even than these. Every thing that voyagers have related of favage life is faid to fall fhort of the barbarism of this people. Their whole time is spent in fearch of food; and as their woods yield them few or no fupplies of animals, and but little vegetable diet, their principal occupation is that of climbing the rocks, or roving along the margin of the fea, in search of a precarious meal of fish, which, during the tempeftuous feafon, they often feek for in vain. Their ftature feldom excceds five feet; their bellies are protuberant, with high fhoulders, large heads, and limbs difproportionably flender. Their countenances exhibit the extreme of wretchednefs, a horrid mixture of famine and ferocity; and their extenuated and difeafed figures plainly indicate the want of wholesome nourishment. Some of thefe unhappy beings have been found on the shores in the laft ftage of famine. a Vancouver's Voy. vol. ii. b. iii. c. i. p. 13. Symes' Embaffy to Ava, ch. i. p. 129, and Afiatic Re fearches, vol. iv. p. 401. In the next fcale of human beings we may place the inhabitants of New Holland, of a part of whom we have fome accounts that may be depended upon, from a person who refided a confiderable time at Port Jackson, and had frequent opportunities of being a witness to their habits and manners. The narrator of Captain Cook's first voyage having mentioned the very fmall number of inhabitants that was feen on the eastern coaft of New Holland, and the apparent inability of the country, from its defolate ftate, to support many more, obferves, " By "what means the inhabitants of this country 66 are reduced to fuch a number as it can fubfift, "is not perhaps very easy to guess; whether, "like the inhabitants of New Zealand, they are destroyed by the hands of each other in con"tefts for food, whether they are swept off by "accidental famine, or whether there is any "cause that prevents the increase of the fpecies, "must be left for future adventurers to de"termine"." The account which Mr. Collins has given of these favages will, I hope, afford in fome degree a fatisfactory answer. They are described as, in * Cook's First Voy. vol. iii. p. 240. general, general, neither tall nor well made. Their arms, legs, and thighs, are thin, which is afcribed to the poornefs of their mode of living. Those who inhabit the fea coaft depend almost entirely on fish for their sustenance, relieved occafionally by a repaft on fome large grubs which are found in the body of the dwarf gum tree. The very fcanty ftock of animals in the woods, and the very great labour neceffary to take them, keep the inland natives in as poor a condition as their brethren on the coaft. They are compelled to climb the tallest trees after honey and the smaller animals, fuch as the flying squirrel and the opoffum. When the items are of great height, and without branches, which is generally the cafe in thick forefts, this is a procefs of great labour, and is effected by cutting a notch with their stone hatchets for each foot fucceffively, while their left arm embraces the tree. Trees were observed notched in this manner to the height of eighty feet before the first branch, where the hungry favage could hope to meet with any reward for fo much toil. The woods, exclufive of the animals occa a Collins's Account of New South Wales, Appendix, P. 549. 4to. VOL. I. D fionally fionally found in them, afford but little fuftenance. A few berries, the yam, the fern root, and the flowers of the different bankfias, make up the whole of the vegetable catalogue'. A native with his child, furprised on the banks of the Hawkfbury river by fome of our colonists, launched his canoe in a hurry, and left behind him a specimen of his food, and of the delicacy of his ftomach. From a piece of waterfoaken wood, full of holes, he had been extracting and eating a large worm. The fmell both of the worm and its habitation was in the highest degree offenfive. These worms, in the language of the country, are called cah-bro; and a tribe of natives dwelling inland, from the circumftance of eating thefe loathfome worms, is named Cah-brogal. The wood natives alfo make a paste formed of the fern root, and the large and small ants bruifed together, and, in the season, add the eggs of this infect'. In a country, the inhabitants of which are driven to fuch refources for fubfiftence, where the fupply of animal and vegetable food is fo extremely fcanty, and the labour neceffary to . • Collins's Account of New South Wales, Appendix, P. 557. 4to. Id. Appen. p. 558. procure |