62 Voyage of the Novara. 



the shoulders downwards with three or four marks, from 1 to 

 1^^ Inch loner, and rather thick in the cicatrix, and continu- 

 ing over the back with similar incisions, is pretty univer- 

 sal, and seems to be considered as a personal decoration. 

 The elder people have the nasal cartilage bored through, and 

 wear in the orifice kangaroo bones, or other bones, or even 

 pieces of wood as amulets. We did not however remark this 

 among the younger generation ; this hideous custom seems to 

 have died out, apparently on account of its discomfort. 



The stay of the Novara in Australia was, as already re- 

 marked, so brief, that it did not admit of the scientific staff 

 making more distant tours to the great cattle '' stations," or 

 gold districts. At the same time it appears to us important 

 to make some few observations on these two products, to 

 which Australia is indebted for her present prosperity, and the 

 former of which is fraught with even more of its future des- 

 tiny than the latter. At the commencement of the present 

 century England used to procure all her wool from Spain, 

 and somewhat later from Germany * and Hungary. Since 

 that period the production of wool in the Cape, the East 

 Indies, and Australia, has so enormously increased, that 

 Great Britain is enabled to get from her colonies the entire 

 consumption she requires for her woollen manufactures, averag- 

 ing from 60 to 70,000,000 lbs., thus utilizing the agricultural 



* The imports of wool from Germany had, in 1836, risen to 31,766,194 lbs., but it 

 has since then rapidly receded, owing mainly to the increased production in the 

 English colonies. 



