Series 03: Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 (vol. 2) - No. 0392
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[Page 392]
288.
some account of New Holland
of those who usd it.
[Margin note] Houses
Naked as these people are when abroad they are scarce at all better defended from the injuries of the weather when at home if that name can with propriety be given to their houses as I beleive they never make any stay in them but wandering like the Arabs from place to place set them up whenever they meet with one where sufficient supplys of food are to be met with & as soon as these are exhausted remove to another leaving the houses behind, which are framd with less art or rather less industry than any habitations of human beings probably that the world can shew
At Sting-Rays Bay where they were the best each was capable of containing within it 4 or 5 people but not one of all these could in any direction extend himself his whole lengh for hight he might just set upright but if inclind to sleep must coil himself in some crooked position as the dimensions were in no direction long enough to hold him otherwise they were built in the form of an oven of pliable rods about as thick as a mans finger the