De Gonneville, having doubled (passed round) the Cape, was by
tempests driven into calm latitudes, and so near to this land that he was
directed thither by the flight of birds. The refusal of the crew to
proceed to Eastern India would scarcely have happened if they had been so
far advanced to the east as New Holland."
It is difficult to conceive how Burney could have expressed such an
opinion, unless he was led to that conclusion by some errors in
Callender's translations. There is, in fact, a passage having reference
to the descriptions of the head-dress worn by the native women, in which
the Scotch geographer has given the following version of Des Brosses'
original:--
"The women and girls go bareheaded, with their hair neatly tied up in
tresses, mixed with flowers of most beautiful colours."?
The original narrative reads thus:--
"Et vont les femmes et filles tete nue, ayant les cheveux gentiment
teurches de petits cordons d'herbes teintes de couleurs vives et
luisantes."
Which means:--
"The women and girls go bare headed, having their hair ornamented with
little strings of grass dyed in bright colours.
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