450 MODES OF BUKIAL. LANGUAGE. 



pressed forwards, and the whole body closely tied up in a 

 blanket. An oval grave was then dug, about six feet long, 

 three wide, and five deep. At the bottom was a bed of leaves, 

 covered with an opossum-skin cloak, and with a stuffed bag 

 of kangaroo-skin for a pillow ; on this the body was laid with 

 its implements and weapons. Above the corpse were strewn 

 leaves and branches, and the hole was then filled up with 

 stones. Finally, the earth which had been removed was put 

 over the whole, making a mound eight or nine feet high. 

 According to D'Urville, the natives of New South Wales bury 

 the young, and burn the old.* Other tribes dispose of their 

 dead in other ways ; but none of them were addicted to can- 

 nibalism as a matter of habit or choice, although they were 

 not unfrequently driven to it by the scarcity of other food, 

 and sometimes ate portions of enemies whom they had slain. 



~No single fact, perhaps, gives us a more vivid idea of the 

 low condition of these miserable savages, than the observation 

 that they have no numerals enabling them to count their own 

 fingers not even those of one hand. Mr. Crawfurd*|" has 

 examined the numerals of thirty Australian languages, " and 

 in no instance do they appear to go beyond the number 

 four." Mr. Scott Nind, indeed, has given an account of the 

 Australians of King George's Sound, to which a vocabulary is 

 annexed, containing the numerals, which are made to reach 

 the number five. The term for this last unit, however, turns 

 out to be only the word "many." In fact, the word "five" is 

 used by them to express the idea of a great number, just as a 

 "thousand" sometimes is by us. 



Their language, moreover, contains "no generic terms, as 

 tree, fish, birds, etc., but only specific ones, as applied to each 

 particular variety." J 



* Vol. i. p. 472. 



t Transactions of Ethn. Soc., New Series, vol. ii. p. 84. 



$ Eyre, vol. ii. p. 392. 



