CAPE YORK. 



355 



bank outside, formed involuntarily by primitive man, may have 

 given the first idea of the mound, the ditch, and rampart. The 

 large amount of wood-ashes accumulated in such a camp, 

 accounts for their occurrence in such large quantities in kitchen - 

 middens, where camping must have been in the same style. A 

 good many shells brought from the shore lay here and there 

 about the camp. 



There were besides in the neighbourhood remains of shelters 

 of the common Australian form, long huts made of bushy 

 branches set at an angle to meet one another above, and 

 partially covered with palm-leaves and grass ; these the Blacks 

 used occasionally. 



In the daytime the young women and the men were usually 

 away searching for food, but two miserable old women, reduced 

 nearly to skeletons, but 

 with protuberant sto- 

 machs, with sores on 

 their bodies and no cloth- 

 ing but a narrow bit of 

 dirty mat, were always 

 to be seen sitting huddled 

 up in the camp. These 

 hags looked up at a visitor 

 with an apparently mean- 

 ingless stare, but only to 

 see if any tobacco or bis- 

 cuit were going to be 

 given them ; they exhi- 

 bited no curiosity, but only scratched themselves now and then 

 with a pointed stick. 



The younger women had all of them a piece of some European 

 stuff round their loins. Some of the men had tattered shirts, but 

 one, who acted as my guide, was invariably absolutely without 

 clothing, as was his son, who always accompanied him. The 

 only property to be seen about the camp were a few baskets of 

 plaited grass, in the making of which the old women were some- 

 times engaged and which were used by the gins for collecting 

 food in. Two large Cymbium shells, with the core smashed out, 



A A 2 



OLD WOMAN, CAPE YORK. 



(From a rough sketch by Lieut. A. Channer, K.N.) 



