The Fifth Continent, with the Adjacent Islands: Being an Account of Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea, with Statistical Information to the Latest Date

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Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1877 - Australia - 316 pages
 

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Page 244 - God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills ; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates ; a land of oil-olive, and honey...
Page 250 - ... nostrils, and mouth too, if the lips are not shut very close; so that from their infancy being thus annoyed with these insects, they do never open their eyes as other people. And therefore they cannot see far unless they hold up their heads as if they were looking at somewhat over them.
Page 250 - They have no sort of clothes but a piece of the rind of a tree, tied like a girdle about their waists, and a handful of long grass, or three or four small green boughs full of leaves, thrust under their girdle to cover their nakedness. " They have no houses, but lie in the open air without any covering : the earth being their bed and the heaven their canopy.
Page 251 - There the old people that are not able to stir abroad by reason of their age, and the tender infants, wait their return; and what Providence has bestowed on them they presently broil on the coals and eat it in common. Sometimes they get as many fish as makes them a plentiful banquet ; and at other times they scarce get every one a taste.
Page 249 - The inhabitants of this country are the miserablest people in the world. The Hodmadods (Hottentots) of Monomatapa, though a nasty people, yet for wealth are gentlemen to these; who have no houses and skin garments, sheep, poultry and fruits of the earth, ostrich eggs etc. as the Hodmadods have; and setting aside their human shape, they differ but little from brutes.
Page 249 - The land is of a dry sandy soil, destitute of water, except you make wells; yet producing divers sorts of trees, but the woods are not thick, nor the trees very big.
Page 93 - ... easy enough ; but to reach the eggs requires no little exertion and perseverance. The natives dig them up with their hands alone, and only make sufficient room to admit their bodies, and to throw out the earth between their legs ; by grubbing with their fingers alone they are enabled to follow the direction of the hole with greater certainty, which will sometimes, at a depth of several feet, turn off abruptly at right angles, its direct course being obstructed by a clump of wood or some other...
Page 251 - ... tis all one; they must attend the weirs, or else they must fast, for the earth affords them no food at all. There is neither herb, root, pulse nor any sort of grain for them to eat, that we saw; nor any sort of bird or beast that they can catch, having no instruments wherewithal to do so.
Page 250 - Their hair is black, short and curled, like that of the Negroes, and not long and lank like the common Indians. The colour of their skins, both of their faces and the rest of their body, is coal black, like that of the Negroes of Guinea.

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