Page 660

Voyages in the Southern Hemisphere, Vols. II - III

Table of Contents On this day ... 3 September 1770 Endeavour Voyage Maps James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia Transcript of Cook's Journal Joseph Banks's Journal Sydney Parkinson's Journal Passage from New South Wales to New Guinea Index Search Contact us

Passage from New South Wales to New Guinea (continued) As the two countries lie very near each other, and the intermediate space is full of islands, it is reasonable to suppose that they were both peopled from one common stock: yet no intercourse appears to have been kept up between them; for if there had, the cocoa-nuts, bread-fruit, plantains, and other fruits of New Guinea, which are equally necessary for the support of life, would certainly have been transplanted to New Holland, where no traces of them are to be found. The Author of the "Histoire des Navigationes aux Terres Australes," in his account of La Maire’s voyage, has given a vocabulary of the language that is spoken in an island near New Britain, and we find, by comparing that vocabulary with the words which we learnt in New Holland, that the languages are not the same. If therefore it should appear, that the languages of New Britain and New Guinea are the same, there will be reason to suppose that New Britain and New Guinea were peopled from a common stock; but that the inhabitants of New Holland had a different origin, notwithstanding the proximity of the countries. Voyaging Accounts © Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 661 - 661, 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/660.html