Series 03: Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 (vol. 2) - No. 0359
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 359]
255:
Some account of that part of New Holland Now Called New South wales
Having now I beleive fairly Passd through between New Holland & New Guinea & having an open sea to the Westward so that we tomorrow intend to steer more to the Northward in order to make the South Coast of New Guinea it seems high time to take leave of New Holland which I shall do by summing up together the few observations I have been able to make on the countrey & people I much wishd indeed to have had better opportunities of seeing & observing the people as they differ so much from the account that Dampier (the only man I know of who has seen them besides us) has given of them he indeed saw them on a part of the coast very distant from where we were & consequently the people might be different but I should rather conclude them to be the same chiefly from having observd an universal conformity in such of their customs as came under my observation in the several places we landed upon during the run of 00 leagues along the coast
[margin note] See 157
Dampier in general seems to be a faithfull relater but in the voyage in which he touchd on the coast of New Holland he was in a ship of Pyrates possibly himself not a little tainted by their idle examples he might have kept no written