440 THE AUSTRALIANS. 



where they were best, were just high enough for a man to sit 

 upright in, but not large enough for hirn to extend himself 

 in his whole length in any direction ; they were built with 

 pliable rods about as thick as a man's finger, in the form of 

 an oven, by sticking the two ends into the ground, and then 

 covering them with palm-leaves and broad pieces of bark ; 

 the door is nothing but a large hole at one end." Eyre also 

 gives a very similar description of those observed by him.* 

 Further north, where the climate was warmer, the dwellings 

 were even less substantial, and being comparatively open on 

 one side, scarcely deserve even the name of huts, and were 

 little more than a protection against the wind. Finally, the 

 natives observed by Dampier near C. Leveque, on the north- 

 west coast, seem to have had no houses at all. Eound their 

 dwelling-places Captain Cook observed " vast heaps of shells, 

 the fish of which we suppose had been their food."-f Captain 

 Grey also describes similar shell mounds, J some of which 

 covered quite half an acre, and were as much as ten feet high. 

 They seem, however, to have been first noticed by Dampier. 

 The food of the Australian savages differs much in different 

 parts of the continent. Speaking generally, it may be said to 

 consist of various roots, fruits, fungi, shell-fish, frogs, snakes, 

 honey, grubs, moths, birds, birds' eggs, fish, turtles, dog, kan- 

 garoo, and sometimes of seal and whale. || The kangaroo, 

 however, forms only an occasional luxury, nor are the natives, 

 so far as I am aware, able to kill whales for themselves, but 

 when one is washed on shore it is a real godsend to them. 

 Fires are immediately lit to give notice of the joyful event. 



* Discoveries in Central Aus- 

 tralia, vol. ii. p. 300. || Grey's Explorations in North- 



t First Voyage, vol. hi. p. 598. West and Western Australia, p. 263; 



I I.e. vol. i. p. 110. See also Eyre, vol. ii. p. 251; McGillivray's 



King's Australia, vol. i. p. 87. Voyage of H. M. S. Kattlesnake, 



Pinkerton's Voyages, vol. ii. vol. i. p. 148. 

 p. 473. 



