156 MAN: PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



he immediately went to his companions and imitated his master's 

 manner of speaking and acting,' to the great amusement of the 

 whole camp. In their dances they imitate in a striking manner 

 the hopping of the kangaroo and the solemn movements of the 

 emu, and never fail to make the spectators laugh 1 ." But they 

 will never "laugh the sense of misery far away," for it is always 

 with them, and surely killing them as it has already killed their 

 Tasmanian kinsmen. 



These " eolithic Tasmanians " ' stood even at a lower level of 

 culture than the Australians. At the occupation 



T Vi o HTo c 



the scattered bands, with no hereditary chiefs or 



mamans. 



social organization, numbered altogether 2000 souls 

 at most, speaking several distinct dialects, whether of one or 

 more stock languages is uncertain. In the absence of sibilants 

 and some other features they resembled the Australian, but 

 were of ruder or less developed structure, and so imperfect that 

 according to Joseph Milligan, our best authority on the subject, 

 "they observed no settled order or arrangement of words in the 



construction of their sentences, but conveyed in a 

 Speech. Vel Pe supplementary fashion by tone, manner, and gesture 



those modifications of meaning which we express 

 by mood, tense, number, &c. 3 ." Abstract terms were rare, and 

 for every variety of gum-tree or wattle-tree there was a name, but 

 no word for " tree " in general, or for qualities, such as hard, soft, 

 warm, cold, long, short, round, &c. Anything hard was "like a 

 stone," round, "like the moon," and so on, "usually suiting the 

 action to the word, and confirming by some sign the meaning to 

 be understood." 



Though they carried fire-sticks about, it is doubtful whether 



they possessed the art of making fire by friction 

 Myth or otherwise. But they remembered a time when 



there was no fire at all, until two blackfellows 

 standing on a hill-top threw it about like stars ; at which the 

 people were frightened and ran away, but came back and made 



1 Lumholtz, op. cit. p. 291. 



1 Ethnology, p. 294. 



3 Paper in Brough Smyth's work, II. p. 413. 



