OF VAX DIEMEX'S LAXD. 157 



NOTES FROM MR. WALKER'S JOURNAL. 



The Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land are rather 

 below the average stature of Englishmen. Both sexes 

 are stout, and their limbs well proportioned ; a few 

 incline to corpulency. They walk remarkably erect, 

 assuming a dignified mien, and in all their movements 

 exhibit agility and ease. Their complexion is very dark, 

 almost black ; a few are of lighter hue, approaching to 

 the colour of copper. The soles of their feet are as 

 light as those of Europeans who go without shoes. The 

 palms of their hands are also much lighter than their 

 bodies. There is a considerable variety of features 

 among them. Generally, thick lips and flat distended 

 nostrils are the characteristics of the race. Many of 

 their countenances are pleasing, and very few of them 

 forbidding ; one man, with a black beard and moustache, 

 had a countenance strikingly Jewish. Their hair is 

 uniformly black and woolly, like the African negroes, 

 whom, in many respects, they nearly resemble. In their 

 savage state the men let their hair grow, and ornament 

 it with grease and red ochre, or, as they term it, ball- 

 dowinny. The women shave their heads. Neither sex 

 wear any clothing, unless a few strips of fur, which are 

 sometimes tied round the thickest part of their limbs, can 

 be called such. Both sexes wear strings of shells as 

 necklaces. The shells are of spiral form, varying in size 

 from that of a pea to a horse-bean. In their natural 

 state they are not remarkable for beauty, but when the 

 outer coating is stripped off they show varied colours 

 of consideralole brilliancy. The aborigines prepare 

 them for use by burning grass over wood embers, when 

 the action of the pyroligneous acid removes the thin 

 coating from the shell. Some of their necklaces were 

 formed of kangaroo sinews, one twisted round another 

 so as to resemble braid, and then dyed with red ochre, 

 their favourite colour, and hung in several folds round 

 the neck. They are fond of smearing their bodies with 

 grease and red ochre, which enables them to bear with 



