Debased State of the Natives, 31- 



All the male natives witli whom we conversed had had the 

 upper central teeth knocked out, such being one distinguish- 

 ing mark of their having attained the dignity of manhood ! 



The abundance of mustachio and beard of the Australian 

 savages is a marked peculiarity, which none of their cognate 

 races east or west have in common with them. We were 

 also told that they value the beard as their highest ornament, 

 and make it one of the great objects of their life to tend it. 

 No man of their race dare marry or kill an emu till he can 

 show a beard, to which also great virtue is attached in 

 battle. None of these natives understand the use of the 

 Boomerang.* ; 



The natives around Port Jackson and in the Illawara 

 district have, generally speaking, little of the aboriginal 

 about them, and their abject misery and addiction to drink 

 make them pitiable and disgusting objects ; for their present 

 hopeless state is in great measure attributable to their contact 

 with civilization, which has made them neither intelligent 

 nor industrious. The natives, however, of the banks of the 

 Murray, Clarence, and Brisbane rivers, though of the same 

 race, are of a very different appearance. They keep up the 

 habits of their ancestors, and seldom come in contact with 



* According to English writers this instrument, the peculiar properties of which 

 are so well known that we need not enlarge upon them here, has also been found in 

 the Sarcophagi of Upper Egypt. In some of the frescos now in the British 

 Museum, which illustrate the manners and habits of the Ancient Egyptians, a figure 

 is represented in the act of launching the Boomerang against a covey of ducks, 

 which are flying out of a thicket. 



