The Wisdom of the Aboriginals

1768 -- Captain Cook's observations of the Aboriginals were numerous and detailed -- affectionate, supercilious, romanticized and condescending:

"...these people may truly be said to be in the pure state of nature, and may appear to some to be the most wretched upon the earth; but in reality they are far happier than ... we Europeans."

More perceptive, too.

When he arrived he met, on the beach, a group of naked dark-skinned people who said to him:

"WARRA WARRA WAI"

Later, he found out those words meant: "GO AWAY."