Series 03: Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 (vol. 2) - No. 0379
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 379]
275
Some account of New Holland
[Margin note] People
This immence tract of Land the largest known which does not bear the name of a continent as it is considerably larger than all Europe is thinly inhabited even to admiration at least that part of it that we saw we never but once saw so many as thirty Indians together & that was a family Men women & children assembled upon a rock to see the ship pass by at Sting-Rays bay where they evidently came down to fight us several times they never could muster above 14 or 15 fighting men indeed in other places they generaly ran away from us from whence it might be concluded that there were greater numbers than we saw but their houses & sheds in the woods which we never faild to find convincd us of the smallness of their parties. we saw indeed only the sea coast what the immense tract of inland countrey may produce is to us totaly unknown we may have liberty to conjecture however that they are totaly uninhabited the Sea has I beleive been universaly found to be the cheif source of supplys to Indians ignorant of