it is known that the New Zealanders treated them well till they polluted their sacred places, cooked food with tapued wood, and put two chiefs in irons. May they not have conducted themselves as ill in Tasmania, so as to incur the displeasure of the natives, and neglected to note the circumstance in their journal?
Captain Furneaux, of the Resolution, having got separated from his commander. Captain Cook, found himself off the south of Van Diemen's Land, in March 1773. Want of curiosity or opportunity gave him no tale to tell of the people in person, though he gathered some information of the country. Examining, on Bruni Island, a deserted wigwam, as he called a break-wind, he found a stone; he thereupon jumped to the conclusion that the Tasmanians, like the Fuegians, used a stone with tinder of bark for obtaining fire. He supposed them ignorant of metals, and left in the hut nails, gun-flints, medals, and an old barrel. There could not be a large population, he thought, as he found but three or four huts in one place. Observing no evidence of the use of any appliances of civilization, he regarded the Natives, as he said, "altogether, from what we could judge, a very ignorant and wretched sort of people, though natives of a country capable of producing every necessary of life, and a climate the finest in the world."
Passing to the eastward, Captain Furneaux ran along the eastern coast, passing Schoutens. Then he entered this passage in his journal: "The country here appears to be very thickly inhabited, as there was a continual fire along-shore as we sailed." He was now desirous of making some acquaintance with the Aborigines; but he said, "The weather being bad, we could not send a boat on shore to have any intercourse with the inhabitants."
Captain Cook entered Adventure Bay, Bruni Island, on January 26th, 1777. Anxious to fall in with the Natives, he went with a party of marines some miles into the bush. A rustling as of a wild beast disturbing them, they looked, and saw a girl, naked and alone. They soothed their terrified prisoner by binding a handkerchief round her neck, and placing a cap upon her head. They then allowed her to depart. Soon after, eight men and a boy approached without fear; one only had a weapon, which is supposed to have been a waddy. In his "Voyages" there is this account of their physical condition:
