CHAPTER 3.15.

PLATE 40: MAP OF EASTERN AUSTRALIA, AND NATURAL LIMITS OF THE COLONY OF NEW SOUTH WALES.London, Published by T. and W. Boone. Engraved by J. Dower, Pentonville.

This territory, still for the most part in a state of nature, presents a fair blank sheet for any geographical arrangement whether of county divisions, lines of communication, or sites of towns etc. etc. The growth of a colony there might be trained according to one general system with a view to various combinations of soil and climate and not left to chance as in old countries or, which would perhaps be worse, to the partial or narrow views of the first settlers. The plan of a whole state might be arranged there like that of an edifice before the foundation is laid, and a solid one seems necessary where a large superstructure is likely to be built. The accompanying sketch of the limits which I would propose for the colony of New South Wales is intended to show also how the deficiencies of such a region might be compensated and the advantages combined for the convenience and accommodation of a civilised and industrious people. The rich pasture land beyond the mountains is already connected by roads with the harbour of Sydney and the system, though not complete, has been at least sufficiently carried into effect to justify the preference of that town and port as a capital and common centre not only for the roads, but for steam navigation around the coasts extending in each direction about 900 miles. The coast country affords the best prospects for the agriculturist, but the arable spots therein, being of difficult access by land, his success would depend much on immediate means of communication with Sydney by water and, on the facility his position would thus afford of shipping his produce to neighbouring colonies.*

(*Footnote. A new market for cattle and sheep has just opened on the interior side by the establishment of the new colony of South Australia, an event more fortunate for New South Wales than the most sanguine friend of that colony could have foreseen. It is to be regretted however that the colonists are so slow in availing themselves of such a market by the direct line of road already traced by my wheels along the right banks of the rivers Lachlan, Murrumbidgee and Murray, by which flocks and herds may be driven to the new colony without any danger of their wanting water or the necessity for their crossing any rivers of importance.)

It would be establishing a lasting monument of the beneficial influence of British power and colonisation thus to engraft a new and flourishing state on a region now so desolate and unproductive; but this seems only possible under very extensive arrangements and by such means as England alone can supply:

"Here the great mistress of the seas is known, By empires founded, not by states o'erthrown." Sydney Gazette, January 1, 1831.

MR. STAPYLTON'S REPORT.

Mr. Stapylton met no difficulty in following my track through Australia Felix with heavy wheel-carriages and worn out cattle, as appears by his own account of his progress in the following report, which he forwarded to me on his arrival at the Murrumbidgee.

Camp near Guy's Station,

Murrumbidgee, November 11.

Sir,

I have the honour to inform you that in compliance with your directions of the 18th of September last I quitted the depot near Lake Repose on the 3rd of October, and that I arrived at this station today. Our journey towards the located country has been most prosperous. On the 17th of October I reached the Goulburn, the numerous streams which intercepted our progress thither having been overcome with rapidity and excellent management on the part of the bullock-drivers. On the 23rd of the same month the three men whom you sent back to me from the Murray arrived at our encampment on the left bank of the Goulburn, and on the 25th the passage was effected across it without an accident of any kind whatsoever. On the 30th we encamped on the right bank of the Swampy river having been again successful in the transit of stores and cattle, and on the 2nd of November the party was established on the right bank of the King. Here we unfortunately lost one bullock, a weak and lame animal. On the 4th of November I made the Murray, and on the 5th, the provision party not being arrived, I directed that the boat, which we found in the contiguous backwater, should be got afloat, and on the evening of that day we took up our position on the right bank of the river; the cattle, horses, and equipment having been passed across in safety and in a manner highly creditable to all the men employed. The boat-carriage (which as well as the boat appeared to have remained untouched by the natives) was brought off on the following morning which being Sunday I halted. On the 7th I resumed our journey and arrived as above-mentioned, the cattle and horses having been got safely over the Murrumbidgee the same afternoon. I duly received your several communications numbers one, two, three and four; your letter by McKane and that by Burnett. Turandurey has grown enormously fat which should speak well of the care we had taken of her, and to the best of my belief no improprieties with her as a female have ever taken place. She was married last night to King Joey and she proceeds with him to her friends. Having a superfluity of government blankets I have taken the liberty of giving her one now and one formerly at the last depot.

I have to acknowledge the receipt of the letter containing your instructions of the 26th ultimo which was delivered to me by Overseer Burnett on the 5th of this month, who arrived at the moment the first boatload from the camp reached the opposite bank of the Murray. By means of casks we floated the drays over the three rivers and, after two experiments with a raft, both partial failures, and while a third raft was in progress, of a more solid and better construction, we discovered that a canoe, of very large dimensions and paddled by the native boy Tommy, would prove the most expeditious as well as a safe mode of shipment for the boxes of value, equipment, etc. I therefore caused a canoe to be used for this purpose and it answered admirably. I have to mention the loss of three of the cattle. One by death at the depot in consequence of previous over-exertion, and two by accidents of a most provoking and unlucky nature, but which could not have been foreseen or prevented.

I have the honour to be, etc.

THE ABORIGINAL NATIVES.

This was one of the best proofs how valuable the services of the aborigines who accompanied the party were to us on some occasions. They could strip from a tree in a very short time a sheet of bark large enough to form a canoe; and they could propel the light bark thus made through the water with astonishing ease and swiftness. By this means alone most of our effects were transported across broad rivers without an accident even to any of my papers or dried plants.

TURANDUREY.

I was now anxious to convince them how much I appreciated that assistance, but felt in some degree at a loss, especially in the case of The Widow. It was therefore not the least satisfactory part of the intelligence subsequently received from Mr. Stapylton that she was married on her arrival to Joey, the King of the Murrumbidgee.

MY MODE OF COMMUNICATING WITH MR. STAPYLTON.

Mr. Stapylton had also received my several communications Numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4, which he dug from the earth at various camps; thus we had for once eluded the keen eye of the aborigines in this kind of correspondence, although on my first journey we had not been so successful. My original plan on this expedition was to bury the letter under the ashes of my fire; cutting at the same time a cross in the turf where my tent had stood, as the mark by which Mr. Stapylton was to know that something was so deposited. But I subsequently improved on this plan and buried my letter in the centre of the cross by merely making a hole with a stick in the soft earth where the turf had been cut and dropping the letter into it.

SURVEY OF THE MURRUMBIDGEE.

In my instructions to Mr. Stapylton, sent by Burnett, I directed him to survey the course of the Murrumbidgee upwards from Guy's station until he connected our interior survey with the map of the colony. This he accomplished by measuring to the junction of the Doomot, a river he had himself previously surveyed. The direct distance between that junction and the point at which we first arrived on the Murrumbidgee was ascertained by Mr. Stapylton's measurement to be 34 3/4 miles, but according to my map of the interior country 36 1/2 miles; making an error of only 1 3/4 miles + or westward in a chain-measurement continued from the station at Buree, where the journey commenced, to the Darling, thence to the southern coast, and back to this point on the Murrumbidgee. The measurement was checked by latitudes determined nightly from observations of several stars, the difference between several amounting to a few seconds only. I availed myself of trigonometrical measurements also with a good theodolite wherever this was possible, in which case such a survey engaged my whole attention, and my route was often directed according to the position of good points.

METEOROLOGICAL JOURNAL.

The meteorological journal was kept more carefully during this journey than on the two preceding; and with the kind assistance of my friends Captain King and Mr. Dunlop it affords, in some parts at least, materials for comparing the atmospheric changes in the regions explored with those occurring simultaneously on the eastern coast.

ARRIVAL OF THE EXPLORING PARTY AT SYDNEY.

It was long before the party arrived in Sydney for, when it reached the Murrumbidgee and the apprehension of famine no longer existed, rest was so necessary for the cattle that it was indulged in for their sake chiefly, to an extent much beyond the wishes of the men. The oxen looked tolerably well therefore when the party did reach Sydney, although from so long a journey; and my men enjoyed at length the triumph among their fellows, to which they had long looked forward, on conducting the boat and boat-carriage safely once more into the yard of my office.

PIPER AND THE MEN REWARDED.

But Piper seemed to relish his share of triumph most, and certainly he well deserved the kindness he met with on all sides. I clothed him in my own red coat and I gave him also a cocked hat and feather which had once belonged to Governor Darling. His portrait thus arrayed soon appeared in the print shops; an ingenious artist (Mr. Fernyhough) having drawn his likeness very accurately. Piper was just the sort of man to enjoy superlatively all his newly acquired consequence. He carried his head high for (as he now found) everybody knew him and not a few gave him money. With these donations he purchased silk handkerchiefs and wore them in his breast, gowns for his gins, for he at last had TWO, and to his great credit he abstained from any indulgence in intoxication, looking down, apparently with contempt, on those wretched specimens of his race who lead a gipsy life about Sydney.

The men, after having been examined in my presence by the Council composed of the governor, his secretary, and the bishop, respecting the events of 27th May, were rewarded according to the standing and condition of each. The government granted every indulgence I asked in their behalf. Burnett, Muirhead, Woods, and Palmer obtained absolute pardons. Woods receiving besides a gratuity of 10 pounds, and several, specially noticed in my report, 5 pounds each. Those who had tickets of leave were rewarded with conditional pardons, and tickets of leave were awarded to the rest with one or two exceptions. Among those excluded was Drysdale, a most trustworthy man and in whose behalf I was therefore much interested. He had not been long enough in the colony to be entitled by the regulations to any indulgence; and all I could do was to obtain for him a very laborious place in the general hospital by holding which he avoided the hulk.

Piper was impatient to return to his own country near Bathurst, and I fulfilled all the conditions of my contract with him by allowing him an old firelock, blankets, etc., decorating him also with a brass plate on which he was styled not as usual "King," for he said there were "too many kings already," but "Conqueror of the Interior"--surely a sufficient passport for him among those most likely to read it, the good people of Bathurst. But when he came to bid me farewell he was accompanied much against his will by the murderer of Mr. Cunningham, Bureemal, who had been placed under his protection by Mr. Ferguson to be conducted back to his tribe. This fellow had grown so stout that I could perceive no resemblance in him to the youth he appeared when captured by Lieutenant Zouch, and he had acquired an impudent air very unlike that of other natives. According to his own confession he had put Mr. Cunningham to death in cold blood, and Mr. Ferguson had in return clothed and fed him for one year, and taught him the Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments.

THE TWO TOMMIES.

The two Tommies still remained to be provided for, and they were both desirous of accompanying me to England. I had seriously intended to take one with me but, so docile and so much attached to my service were both of these youths, that I felt much difficulty in choosing between them. Meanwhile they remained at Sydney while official cares and troubles so thickened about me that I at length abandoned my intention, however reluctantly and, when they were about to return at last to their own country, I gave to each what clothes I could spare and they both shed tears when they left my house. They were to travel through the colony under the protection of Charles Hammond, one of my steadiest men who, having obtained his freedom in reward for his services with me, was proceeding towards Bathurst in charge of the teams of a Parcel Delivery Company.

BALLANDELLA.

The little Ballandella, child of The Widow, was a welcome stranger to my children among whom she remained and seemed to adopt the habits of domestic life con amore, evincing a degree of aptness which promised very favourably. The great expense of the passage home of a large family obliged me at last to leave her at Sydney under the care of my friend Dr. Nicholson who kindly undertook the superintendence of her education during my absence in England.

CHARACTER OF THE NATIVES OF THE INTERIOR.

My experience enables me to speak in the most favourable terms of the aborigines whose degraded position in the midst of the white population affords no just criterion of their merits. The quickness of apprehension of those in the interior was very remarkable, for nothing in all the complicated adaptations we carried with us either surprised or puzzled them. They are never awkward, on the contrary in manners and general intelligence they appear superior to any class of white rustics that I have seen.

LANGUAGE.

Their powers of mimicry seem extraordinary, and their shrewdness shines even through the medium of imperfect language and renders them in general very agreeable companions.

On comparing a vocabulary of the language spoken by the natives on the Darling with other vocabularies obtained by various persons on different parts of the coast I found a striking similarity in eight words, and it appears singular that all these words should apply to different parts of the human body. I could discover no term in equally general use for any other object as common as the parts of the body, such for instance as the sun, moon, water, earth, etc. By the accompanying list of words used at different places to express the same meaning,* it is obvious that those to which I have alluded are common to the natives both in the south-eastern and south-western portions of Australia; while no such resemblance can be traced between these words and any in the language spoken by natives on the northern coast. Now from this greater uniformity of language prevailing throughout the length of this large island, and the entire difference at much less distance latitudinally, it may perhaps be inferred that the causes of change in the dialect of the aborigines have been more active on the northern portion of Australia than throughout the whole extent from east to west. The uniformity of dialect prevailing along the whole southern shore seems a fact worthy of notice as connected with any question respecting the origin of the language, and whether other people or dialects have been subsequently introduced from the northern or terrestrial portion of the globe. These words although few may be useful to philologists as specimens of the general language and, as the names of parts of the body can be obtained by travellers from men the most savage by only pointing to each part, comparisons may be thus extended to the natives of other shores.

(*Footnote. See Appendix 2.1)

I am not aware that any affinity has been discovered, at least in single words, between the Australian language and that of the Polynesian people;* but with very slight means of comparison I may perhaps be excused for noticing the resemblance of Murroa, the name of the only volcanic crater as yet found in Australia to Mouna-roa, the volcano of the Sandwich Islands; and that tao, the name of the small yam or root eaten by Australians, is similar to taro, the name of thirty-three varieties of edible root and having the same meaning in the Friendly and Society Isles and also in the Sandwich Islands. (See Cook's Voyages and Polynesian Researches by William Ellis.)

(*Footnote. Mr. Threlkeld has detected in it a similarity of idiom to the languages of the South Sea islanders and the peculiarity of a dual number common to all. See his Australian Grammar, Sydney 1834.)

HABITS OF THOSE OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND THE SAME.

The natives of Van Diemen's Land, the only inhabited region south of Australia, are said to have been as dark as the negro race and to have had woolly hair like them. Little is known of the language and character of the unfortunate Tasmanian aborigines, and this is the more to be regretted considering how useful a better knowledge of either might have been in tracing the progressive extension of the Australasian people. The prevailing opinion at present is that the natives of Van Diemen's Land were also much more ferocious than the natives of Australia. But, brief as the existence of these islanders has been on the page of history, these characteristics are very much at variance with the descriptions we have of the savages seen by the earliest European visitors, and especially by Captain Cook who thus describes those he saw at Adventure Bay in 1777: "Their colour is a dull black, and not quite so deep as that of the African negroes. It should seem also that they sometimes heighten their black colour by smoking their bodies, as a mark was left behind on any clean substance, such as white paper, when they handled it." Captain Cook then proceeds to describe the hair as being woolly, but all the other particulars of that description are identical with the peculiarities of Australian natives; and Captain King stated, according to the editor of the Northern Voyage of Cook, that "Captain Cook was very unwilling to allow that the hair of the natives seen in Adventure Bay WAS woolly." The hair of the natives we saw in the interior and especially of the females had a very frizzled appearance and never grew long; and I should rather consider the hair of the natives of Tasmania as differing in degree only from the frizzled hair of those of Australia.

HABITS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ABORIGINES.

Instead of the ferocious character latterly attributed to the natives of Van Diemen's Land we find on the contrary that Captain Cook describes them as having "little of that fierce or wild appearance common to people in their situation;" and a historian* draws a comparison, also in their favour, between them and the natives of Botany Bay, of whom THREE stood forward to oppose Captain Cook at his first landing. The ferocity subsequently displayed by natives of Van Diemen's Land cannot fairly be attributed to them therefore as characteristic of their race, at least until extirpation stared them in the face and excited them to acts of desperate vengeance against all white intruders.

(*Footnote. The History of New Holland by the Right Honourable William Eden, 1787 page 99.)

The habits and customs of the aboriginal inhabitants are remarkably similar throughout the wide extent of Australia, and appear to have been equally characteristic of those of Van Diemen's Land: geological evidence also leads us to suppose that this island has not always been separated from the mainland by Bass Strait. The resemblance of the natives of Van Diemen's Land to those of Northern Australia seemed indeed so perfect that the first discoverers considered them "as well as the kangaroo, only stragglers from the more northern parts of the country;" and as they had no canoes fit to cross the sea, that New Holland, as it was then termed, "was nowhere divided into islands, as some had supposed."

TEMPORARY HUTS. MODE OF CLIMBING TREES.

Their mode of life, as exhibited in the temporary huts made of boughs, bark, or grass,* and of climbing trees to procure the opossum by cutting notches in the bark, alternately with each hand as they ascend, prevails not only from shore to shore in Australia but is so exactly similar in Van Diemen's Land and at the same time so uncommon elsewhere that Tasman, the first discoverer of that island, concluded "that the natives either were of an extraordinary size, from the steps having been five feet asunder or THAT THEY HAD SOME METHOD which he could not conceive of climbing trees by the help of such steps." It is strong presumptive evidence therefore of the connection of the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land with the race in Australia that a method of climbing trees, now so well known as peculiar to the natives of Australia, should have been equally characteristic of those of Tasmania. The notches made in climbing trees are cut by means of a small stone hatchet and, as already observed, with each hand alternately. By long practice a native can support himself with his toes on very small notches, not only in climbing but while he cuts other notches, necessary for his further ascent, with one hand, the other arm embracing the tree. The elasticity and lightness of the simple handle of the mogo or stone hatchet employed (see Figure 5 above) are well adapted to the weight of the head and assist the blow necessary to cut the thick bark with an edge of stone. As the natives live chiefly on the opossum, which they find in the hollow trunk or upper branches of tall trees and, as they never ascend by old notches but always cut new ones, such marks are very common in the woods; and on my journeys in the interior I knew, by their being in a recent state, when I was approaching a tribe; or when they were not quite recent how long it was since the natives had been in such parts of the woods; whether they had any iron hatchets or used still those of stone only; etc.

(*Footnote. Many usages of these rude people much resemble those of the wandering Arabs. Dr. Pococke mentions some open huts made of boughs raised about three feet above the ground which he found near St. John D'Acre. He observes: "These materials are of so perishing a nature, and trees and reeds and bushes are so very scarce in some places that one would wonder they should not all accommodate themselves with tents but we find they do not in fact." Volume 2 page 158. "And that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem saying, Go forth unto the mount and fetch olive branches and pine branches and myrtle branches and palm branches and branches of thick trees to make booths as it is written." Nehemiah 8:15.)

REMARKABLE CUSTOMS.

The men wear girdles usually made of the wool of the opossum, and a sort of tail of the same material is appended to this girdle, both before and behind, and seems to be the only part of their costume suggested by any ideas of decency. The girdle answers besides the important purpose of supporting the lower viscera, and seems to have been found necessary for the human frame by almost all savages.

CHARMED STONES. FEMALES EXCLUDED FROM SUPERSTITIOUS RITES.

In these girdles the men, and especially their coradjes or priests, frequently carry crystals of quartz or other shining stones, which they hold in high estimation and very unwillingly show to anyone, taking care when they do that no woman shall see them.*

(*Footnote. Genesis 28:18. "From this conduct of Jacob and this Hebrew appellative, the learned Bochart, with great ingenuity and reason, insists that the name and veneration of the sacred stones called Baetyli, so celebrated in all Pagan antiquity, were derived. These baetyli were stones of a round form, they were supposed to be animated, by means of magical incantations, with a portion of the Deity; they were consulted on occasions of great and pressing emergency, as a kind of divine oracles, and were suspended either round the neck or some other part of the body." Burder's Oriental Customs volume 1 page 40.)

BANDAGE OR FILLET AROUND THE TEMPLES.

The natives wear a neatly wrought bandage or fillet round the head and whiten it with pipe-clay as a soldier cleans his belts.* They also wear one of a red colour under it. The custom is so general, without obvious utility, at least when the hair is short, that we may suppose it is also connected with some superstition.

(*Footnote. See illustration Cambo Volume 1.)

STRIKING OUT THE TOOTH.

But still more remarkable is the practice of striking out one of the front teeth at the age of puberty, a custom observed both on the coast and as far as I penetrated in the interior. On the western coast also Dampier observed that the two fore-teeth were wanting in all the men and women he saw. According to Piper certain rites belong to this strange custom. The young men retire from the tribe to solitary places, there to mourn and abstain from animal food for many days previous to their being subjected to this mutilation. The tooth is not drawn but knocked out by an old man, or coradje, with a wooden chisel, struck forcibly and so as to break it. It would be very difficult to account for a custom so general and also so absurd, otherwise than by supposing it a typical sacrifice, probably derived from early sacrificial rites. The cutting off of the last joint of the little finger of females seems a custom of the same kind; also boring the cartilage between the nostrils in both sexes and wearing therein, when danger is apprehended, a small bone or piece of reed.*

(*Footnote. The aborigines of Australia seem to resemble more, although at so great a distance, those of the Sandwich Islands than the natives of any other of the numerous isles so much nearer to them. According to Cook this strange custom of striking out the teeth prevails also there. "The knocking out their fore teeth," says that navigator, "may be, with propriety, classed among their religious customs. Most of the common people and many of the chiefs had lost one or more of them; and this we understood was considered as a propitiatory sacrifice to the Eatooa to avert his anger; and not like the cutting off a part of the finger at the Friendly Islands to express the violence of their grief at the death of a friend." Cook's Voyage.)

PAINTING WITH RED.

To paint the body red seems also a custom of the natives in all parts that I have visited: but the most constant use of colours both white and red appears on the narrow shield or hieleman (see below) which is seldom to be found without some vestiges of both colours about the carving with which they are also ornamented.*

(*Footnote. "A German pays no attention to the ornament of his person; his shield is the object of his care; and this he decorates with the liveliest colours." Tacitus de Mor. Germ. c.6.)

RAISED SCARS ON ARMS AND BREAST.

The "large punctures or ridges raised on different parts of their bodies, some in straight and others in curved lines" distinguish the Australian natives wherever they have been yet seen and, in describing these raised scars, I have quoted the words of Captain Cook as the most descriptive although having reference to the natives of Adventure Bay, in one of the most southern isles of Van Diemen's Land, when first seen in 1777.

CUTTING THEMSELVES IN MOURNING.

It is also customary for both men and women to cut themselves in mourning for relations. I have seen old women in particular bleeding about the temples from such self-inflicted wounds.*

(*Footnote. "We often read of people cutting themselves, in Holy Writ, when in great anguish; but we are not commonly told what part they wounded. The modern Arabs, it seems, gash their arms which with them are often bare: it appears from a passage of Jeremiah that the ancients wounded themselves in the same part, 'Every head shall be bald, and every beard clipt; upon all hands shall be cuttings and upon the loins sackcloth.' Chapter 48:37." Harmer volume 4 page 436.)

AUTHORITY OF OLD MEN.

Respect for age is universal among the aborigines. Old men, and even old women, exercise great authority among assembled tribes and "rule the big war" with their voices when both spears and boomerangs are ready to be thrown.* Young men are admitted into the order of the seniors according to certain rites which their coradjes, or priests, have the sagacity to keep secret and render mysterious.

(*Footnote. Leviticus 19:32. "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man." The Lacedemonians had a law that aged persons should be reverenced like fathers. See also Homer Iliad 15:204 et 23:788. Odyss. 13:141.)

LAW AGAINST EATING EMU FLESH.

No young men are allowed to eat the flesh or eggs of the emu, a kind of luxury which is thus reserved exclusively for the old men and the women. I understood from Piper, who abstained from eating emu when food was very scarce, that the ceremony necessary in this case consisted chiefly in being rubbed all over with emu fat by an old man. Richardson, one of our party, was an old man and Piper reluctantly allowed himself to be rubbed with emu fat by Richardson; but from that time he had no objection to eat the flesh of that bird. The threatened penalty was that young men, after eating it, would be afflicted with sores all over the body.

NATIVE DOGS.

The native dog, so common in Australia, is not found in Tasmania; while on the other hand two animals, the Dasyurus ursinus and Thylacynus, exist in Tasmania but have not been found hitherto in Australia. Have these been extirpated in Australia by the dog on his introduction subsequently to the opening of the straits? It may be observed that this is the more likely as the above-mentioned species found in Van Diemen's Land only, consist of those two unable to climb and avoid such an enemy. The Australian natives evince great humanity in their behaviour to these dogs. In the interior we saw few natives who were not followed by some of these animals, although they did not appear of much use to them. The women not unfrequently suckle the young pups and so bring them up, but these are always miserably thin so that we knew a native's dog from a wild one by the starved appearance of the former. The howl of a native dog in the desert wilds is the most melancholy sound imaginable, much resembling that of a tame dog when he has lost his master. We find no remains of this genus among the fossils and it seems therefore probable that the dog accompanied the native, wherever he came from.

FEMALES CARRYING CHILDREN.

We trace a further resemblance between this rude people and the orientals in their common method of carrying children on their shoulders; and the sketch of Turandurey with Ballandella so mounted (Plate 24) affords the best illustration of a passage in Scripture which has very much puzzled commentators.* But the savage tribes of mankind as they approach nearer to the condition of animals seem to preserve a stronger resemblance to themselves and to each other. The uniform stability of their manners seems a natural consequence of the uncultivated state of their faculties; and it is satisfactory to discover such direct illustrations of ancient history among these rude and primitive specimens of our race.

(*Footnote. "Was the custom anciently the reverse of this? So it might be imagined from Isaiah 49:22. 'They shall bring thy sons in their arms and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders'"! Harmer's Oriental Customs.)

WEAPONS. THE SPEAR. WOOMERA.

The weapons used by the natives are not more remarkable and peculiar in their construction than general in their use on every shore of New Holland. The spear is thrown by means of a woomera which is a slight rod about three feet long having at one end a niche to receive the end of the spear. The missile is shot forward by this means with great force and accuracy of direction; for by the peculiar method of throwing the spear the woomera affords a great additional impetus from this most ingenious lengthening of the arm to that extent.*

(*Footnote. For the shape of the woomera see Moyengully Plate 49 above; and the manner of throwing the spear may be seen in Plate 8 Volume 1.)

THE BOOMERANG. ITS PROBABLE ORIGIN.

The boomerang, a thin curved missile, can be thrown by a skilful hand so as to rise upon the air and thus to deviate from the ordinary path of projectiles, its crooked course being nevertheless equally under control. It is of the form here represented, being about two feet four inches long. These weapons are cut according to the grain from the curved parts of acacia or other standing trees of compact hard wood. They usually weigh about 9 1/2 ounces. One side, which is the uppermost in throwing, is slightly convex, and is sometimes elaborately carved. The lower side is flat and plain. The boomerang is held, not as a sabre, but sickle-wise, or concave towards the thrower and, as a rotatory motion is imparted to it when sent off, the air presents so much resistance to the flat side and so little to the sharp edge as it cuts forward, that the long-sustained flight of the whirling missile seems independent of the common effect of gravitation.

THE BOOMERANG, A SINGULAR MISSILE.

The native, from long practice, can do astonishing things with this weapon. He seems to determine with great certainty what its crooked and distant flight shall be, and how and where it is to end. Thus he frequently amuses himself in hurling the formidable weapon to astonishing heights and distances from one spot to which the missile returns to fall beside him. Sometimes the earth is made a fulcrum to which the boomerang descends only to resume a longer and more sustained flight, or to leap, perhaps, over a tree and strike an object behind it.

The contrivance probably originated in the utility of such a missile for the purpose of killing ducks where they are very numerous, as on the interior rivers and lagoons and where, accordingly, we find it much more in use than on the seacoast and better made, being often covered with good carving.* (See Cambo, Volume 1, also small figures in Plate 28 above.)

(*Footnote. That Dampier saw this weapon also on the western coast in latitude 16 degrees 50 minutes is evident from the following observation. "These swords were afterwards found to be made of wood and rudely shaped something like a cutlass.")

SHIELD OR HIELEMAN.

There is also much originality in the shield or hieleman of these people. It is merely a piece of wood of little thickness and 2 feet 8 inches long, tapering to each end, cut to an edge outwards and having a handle or hole in the middle behind the thickest part. This is made of light wood and affords protection from missiles, chiefly by the facility with which it is turned round the centre or handle.

NARROW SHIELD, OR HIELEMAN.

SKILL IN APPROACHING THE KANGAROO.

Great ingenuity is necessary and is as cleverly practised by the natives in approaching the kangaroo. This they display in creeping, stalking with bushes, advancing behind trees, etc. and to such a degree are their wits sharpened by their appetites that they can even distinguish when the kangaroo kills a fly; and they consider in their proceedings, from the habit of the kangaroo to kill flies and smell the blood, whether the animal may discover from the blood the fly contains that men are near.

FOOD OF THE NATIVES. MODES OF COOKING.

The natives are accustomed to cook such animals by digging a hole in the ground, making a fire in it, and heating the stones found about. The kangaroo is placed in this hole with the skin on, and is covered with heated embers or warm stones.

OPOSSUM. SINGEING.

The opossum which constitutes the more ordinary food of the native is not cooked so much, but only singed, so as to have a flavour of the singed wool; but it is nevertheless palatable enough even to a white man.

VEGETABLE FOOD. THE SHOVEL.

The young natives of the interior usually carry a small wooden shovel (see foreground figure, Plate 12 Volume 1) with one end of which they dig up different roots, and with the other break into the large anthills for the larvae, which they eat: the labour necessary to obtain a mouthful even, of such indifferent food, being thus really more than would be sufficient for the cultivation of the earth according to the more provident arrangements of civilised men. Yet in a land affording such meagre support the Australian savage is not a cannibal: while the New Zealander, who inhabits a much more productive region, notoriously feasts on human flesh.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

Were it expedient to enter here into further details, or upon a longer description of the natives of Australia, I might quote largely from Captain Cook's account of those he saw at Adventure Bay, Van Diemen's Land, as being more detailed and descriptive, both of the natives in the interior, and of those also around the whole circumference of Australia, than any I could give. In the descriptions by Dampier and other navigators who have touched on any part of these shores we recognise the same natives with all their characteristics, and are led to conclude that they are derived from the same stock and, as the judicious compiler of the first History of New Holland considered it most probable from this and other circumstances "that the number is small, and that the interior parts of the country are inhabited,"* I may observe that I have had no reason to entertain a contrary opinion from what I saw of the interior country beyond the Darling. The native population is very thinly spread over the regions I have explored, amounting to nearly a seventh part of Australia. I cannot estimate the number at more than 6000; but on the contrary I believe it to be considerably less. They may increase rapidly if wild cattle become numerous; and as an instance I may refer to the number and good appearance of the Cudjallagong tribe near Macquarie range where they occasionally fell in with a herd of wild cattle.

(*Footnote. History of New Holland pages 31 and 232.)

DESTRUCTION OF THE KANGAROO.

The kangaroo disappears from cattle runs, and is also killed by stockmen merely for the sake of the skin; but no mercy is shown to the natives who may help themselves to a bullock or a sheep. Such a state of things must infallibly lead to the extirpation of the aboriginal natives, as in Van Diemen's Land, unless timely measures are taken for their civilisation and protection. I have heard some affecting allusions made by natives to the white men's killing the kangaroo. At present almost every stockman has several strong kangaroo dogs; now it would be only an act of justice towards the aborigines to prohibit white men by law from killing these creatures which are as essential to the natives as cattle are to the Europeans. The prohibition would be at least a proof of the disposition of the strangers to act as humanely as they possibly could towards the natives. If wild cattle on the contrary become numerous the natives also might increase in number and, if not civilised and instructed now, might become formidable and implacable enemies then, as no absolute right to kill even wild cattle would be conceded to them. The evils likely to result from such circumstances were apparent both in the commencement and termination of my first journey; but although the desert character of the interior renders such a state of things less likely to happen, at least on a larger scale, the unfortunate race whom we have found on the shores of Australia are not the less entitled to our protection.

CIVILISATION OF THE ABORIGINES.

Some adequate provision for their civilisation and maintenance is due on our part to this race of men, were it only in return for the means of existence of which we are depriving them. The bad example of the class of persons sent to Australia should be counteracted by some serious efforts to civilise and instruct these aboriginal inhabitants. That they are capable of civilisation and instruction has been proved recently in the case of a number who were sentenced for some offence to be confined with a chaingang on Goat Island in Sydney harbour. By the exertions of Mr. Ferguson, who was I believe a missionary gentleman, these men were taught in five months to read tolerably well, and also to explain in English the meaning of the Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments. During that time they had been initiated in the craft of stone-cutting and building so as to completely erect a small house. They grew fat and muscular and appeared really stronger men, when well fed, than the white convicts.

The natives have also proved very good shepherds when any of them have been induced, by proper encouragement and protection, to take charge of a flock. Tommy Came-first, one of the lads who travelled with me, had previously tended sheep for a year and had given great satisfaction.

My experiment with the little native girl, Ballandella, will be useful I trust in developing hereafter the mental energies of the Australian aborigines for, by the last accounts from Sydney, I am informed that she reads as well as any white child of the same age.

PLATE 41: SCENERY AROUND THE ENTRANCE OF THE LARGEST CAVERN IN THE LIMESTONE AT WELLINGTON VALLEY.T.L.M. del. A. Picken Lith.

Geological specimens collected.Connection between soil and rocks.Limestone.Granite.Trap-rocks.Sandstone.Geological structure and physical outline.Valleys of excavation.Extent of that of the Cox.Quantity of rock removed.Valley of the Grose.Wellington Valley.Limestone caverns.Description and view of the largest.Of that containing osseous breccia.First discovery of bones.Small cavity and stalagmitic crust.Teeth found in the floor.A third cavern.Breccia on the surface.Similar caverns in other parts of the country.At Buree.At Molong.Shattered state of the bones.Important discoveries by Professor Owen.Gigantic fossil kangaroos.Macropus atlas.Macropus titan.Macropus indeterminate.Genus Hypsiprymnus, new species, indeterminate.Genus Phalangista.Genus Phascolomys.Ph. mitchellii, a new species.New Genus Diprotodon.Dasyurus laniarius, a new species.General results of Professor Owen's researches.Age of the breccia considered.State of the caverns.Traces of inundation.Stalagmitic crust.State of the bones.Putrefaction had only commenced when first deposited.Accompanying marks of disruption.Earthy deposits.These phenomena compared with other evidence of inundation.Salt lakes in the interior.Changes on the seacoast.Proofs that the coast was once higher above the sea than it is at present.Proofs that it was once lower.And of violent action of the sea.At Wollongong.Cape Solander.Port Jackson.Broken Bay.Newcastle.Tuggerah Beach.Bass Strait.

GEOLOGICAL SPECIMENS COLLECTED.

As any geological information respecting a country so little known as the eastern coast of Australia may be acceptable to the public, I venture to subjoin a few observations on some of the more prominent subjects of my researches, and I do so with the more confidence because it will appear how largely I am indebted for the interest they possess to the kindness of my scientific friends in England.

CONNECTION BETWEEN SOIL AND ROCKS.

During the surveys and expeditions I carefully collected specimens at every important locality, and I have thus been enabled since my return to England to mark upon my maps the geological structure of the country. By this means also I have been able to determine the relative value of the land in the districts recently explored and to compare it with that of the country previously known.

By a little attention to the geological structure of Australia we learn how much the superficial qualities of soil and productions depend upon it, and where to look for arable spots amid the general barrenness. The most intelligent surveyors of my department have on several occasions contributed considerably to my collection.

Curiosity led me to investigate some of the fossil remains of those lately discovered regions while my public duties obliged me to study also the external features of the country; and I have thus been enabled to draw some inferences respecting various changes which have taken place in the surface and in the relative level of sea and land.

The following are the principal rocks which I noticed in the country.

LIMESTONE.

Limestone occurs of different ages and quality presenting a considerable variety.

1. A light-coloured compact calcareous rock resembling mountain limestone; at Buree and Wellington, rising, at the former place, to the height of about 1500 feet above the sea.

2. A dark grey limestone appears at perhaps a still greater height on the Shoalhaven river; in immediate contact with granite.

3. A crystalline variegated marble is found in blocks a few miles westward of the above, near the Wollondilly.

4. Another variety of this rock is very abundant in the neighbourhood of Limestone plains on the interior side of the Coast ranges and near the principal sources of the Murrumbidgee. This contains corals belonging to the genus favosites; crinoideae are also found abundantly in the plains and distinguish this limestone from the others above-mentioned.

These rocks present little or no appearance of stratification.

A remarkably projecting ridge on the banks of Peel's river contained limestone of so peculiar an aspect as to resemble porphyry, and it was associated with a rock having a base of chocolate-coloured granular felspar. (See Volume 1.)

A yellow highly calcareous sandstone, apparently stratified, occurs near the banks of the Gwydir. Large rounded boulders of argillaceous limestone have been denuded in the bed of Glendon brook; and an impure limestone is found in the neighbourhood of William's river, both belonging to the basin of the Hunter and not much elevated above the sea. Calcareous tuff or grit may be observed in various localities, and calcareous concretions abound in the blue clay of almost all the extensive plains on both sides of the mountains.

A soft shelly limestone, most probably of recent origin though slightly resembling some of the oolites of England, occurs extensively on the southern coast between Cape Northumberland and Portland bay where it forms the only rock with the exception of amygdaloidal trap.

GRANITE.

Granite or granitic compounds are more or less apparent at or near the sources of the principal rivers; but with the exception of the Southern Alps and some patches in the counties of Bathurst and Murray this fundamental rock is visible in Australia only where it appears to have cracked a thick overlying stratum of ferruginous sandstone. Thus near the head of the river Cox where the latter attains its greatest elevation, and from the character of the valley has evidently been violently disturbed, we find granite in the valley near the bed of the stream.

Observation 1. Such is the character of the country where the waters separate, or in the line of greatest elevation which we are accustomed to term the Coast Range. The general direction of this range is north-north-east and accords perfectly with the hypothesis of Dr. Fitton, founded on the general parallelism observed in the range of the strata, even on the north-western coast, as noticed in his interesting little volume, the first ever devoted to Australian Geology.* The parallelism so remarkable in the range of strata in that portion, the general tendency of the coastlines to a course from the west of south to the east of north on the mainland, and even in the islands west of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and a general elevation of the strata towards the south-east, as deduced from Flinders' remarks, are all facts which should be studied in connection with the direction of the granite along this part of the eastern coast.

(*Footnote. An account of some Geological specimens from the coasts of Australia by William Henry Fitton, M.D., F.R.S., V.P.G.S., etc. 1826.)

Observation 2. It may be also observed that the sandstone reposing on the rock eastward of this division or watershed is slightly inclined towards the sea, whereas all the sandstone on the interior side, or westward of it, dips to the north-west.

TRAP-ROCKS.

Trap-rocks are displayed in a great variety of situations. They often occur connected with limestone in valleys, sometimes constitute lofty ranges as on the north or left bank of the Hunter, and along the seashore at the Illawarra; they likewise cap the summit of isolated hills, but no particular place can be assigned to them with reference to the position of any other rocks. Trap forms a good soil on decomposition as is shown in the rich districts of the Illawarra, Cowpastures, Valley of the Hunter, Liverpool Plains, Wellington Valley, and Buree.

Vesicular lava and amygdaloid are the chief ingredients of some of the best parts of Australia Felix. In that region volcanic phenomena are more apparent than in other parts of Eastern Australia, especially where the Grampians, consisting of a mass of sandstone 4000 feet thick, seem a portion of the great formation covering the districts of the north. The strata in these mountains are inclined to the north-west, as if in obedience to the upheavings of Murroa or Mount Napier, an extinct volcano in the very line of their outcrop.

Observation. We found in the interior, hills of sandstone only, but at this extremity of the great Coast range granite is extensively exposed in ridges, between which, in one extensive district, are round heights of mammeloid form, consisting of pure lava, and in another, tabular masses of trap reposing on granite occupy one side of a valley.

GRAVEL.

Beds of gravel are not common in these parts of Australia; but occur partially in the basins of the larger streams on the interior side of the Coast range where the pebbles in general consist of quartz.

SANDSTONE.

The prevailing geological feature in all Eastern Australia is the great abundance of a ferruginous sandstone in proportion to any other rocks. The sterility of the country where it occurs has been frequently noticed in these volumes. It is found on the coast at Port Jackson and it was the furthest rock seen by me in the interior beyond the Darling.

A deposit upwards of 1200 feet thick forms the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, ranging thence, with the intersection of no other rock of importance, to the Hawkesbury; and although declining towards the sea at the rate of only 100 feet per mile, or 1 in 52, or at an angle of about 1 degree with the horizon; yet it is traversed by ravines which increase in depth in proportion as the sandstone attains a greater elevation, and present perpendicular crags and cliffs of a very remarkable character.

A region consisting of a sandstone deposit of so great thickness and so slightly inclined necessarily presents a monotonous aspect in all directions; and when it is compared with European countries composed of many formations and presenting great diversity of scenery it proves how much geological structure influences pictorial and physical outlines. (See Plate 10 Volume 1, also Plate 38 above.)

In the eastern part of Australia the geologist will certainly find sections in abundance but they are nearly all of sandstone for, with few exceptions no other rocks have been denuded in situations similarly exposed.

GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE AND PHYSICAL OUTLINE. VALLEYS OF EXCAVATION. EXTENT OF THAT OF THE COX.

The ravines which discharge their waters into the little river Cox occupy an area of 1,212 square miles, or one-half of the county of Westmoreland on the right or south side of that river, and one-fourth of the county of Cook on the other. Of this area 796 square miles, equal to one-half of the county of Westmoreland, are on the right or south side of that river, and 416, or one-fourth of the county of Cook, on the left. The whole extent comprises the basin of this mountain stream, and is bounded by heights rising very gradually from about 1000 feet at the gorge or outlet of the Cox, to 3,400 feet on the north side at Blackheath, and on the south to Murruin and Werong, summits of still greater elevation; the lowest part of the ridge bounding this basin on the west or interior side being nearly 3000 feet above the level of the sea. Cox's river flows over a bed of water-worn rocks which, in the upper part of the valley, is 2,150 feet above the sea, and on the road to Bathurst this bed consists of trap and granite. The river falls rapidly on leaving the granite of the vale of Clwyd to a level not much above that of the sea, and it escapes near its junction with the Warragamba from this spacious basin through a gorge about 2,200 yards wide and flanked on each side by points about 800 feet high.

QUANTITY OF ROCK REMOVED.

Supposing but two-thirds of the enclosed area of sandstone to have been excavated to the depth of 880 feet only, which I allow as the mean thickness of the stratum thus broken into, and considering the inclination of the Cox and other valleys, then 134 CUBIC MILES of stone must have been removed from this basin of the Cox alone.

VALLEY OF THE GROSE.

The valley of the Grose, whose basin is contiguous to that of the Cox on the north, is of less extent but enclosed by cliffs of greater perpendicular height. That river has been already described in the journal, and the general character of the valley through which it flows is represented in Plate 10 Volume 1.* We now perceive but slight indications of the action by which the great area of stone in the valley of the Cox, the Grose etc. has been removed. There are no accumulations of sand but huge blocks of rock, scarcely worn by attrition, occur in great abundance in the bed of the stream; neither do we find in the larger channels of the rivers below any sand deposits, but on the contrary the very rich alluvium which distinguishes the banks of the Hawkesbury.

(*Footnote. This book is already almost too full of plates and I beg to refer the geological reader to my three-sheet map of the Colony for the superficial forms and extent of these valleys.)

WELLINGTON VALLEY.

In the year 1830, after I had traced out the new line of descent from the Blue Mountains to the interior country by the pass which I then named Mount Victoria, I extended my survey to the heights beyond Wellington Valley. This includes a rich alluvial tract watered by the river Bell, one of the principal tributaries of the Macquarie, and is about 170 miles to the westward of Newcastle. It is bounded on each side by a compact calcareous rock resembling the mountain limestone of England and rising on the east side to about 100 feet above the Bell.

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