584 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



At Wyndham I got sick again by complications following the 

 attack of malaria, but recovered before proceeding to Port Darwin, 

 where I arrived at the middle of September. In the Northern Terri- 

 tory the most friendly relations exist generally between the whites 

 and blacks ; and, strange to say, in this State exists the least compre- 

 hensive legislation dealing with the aboriginals, which are physically 

 and mentally of a superior type. Close association was secured with 

 the Kunandja or Kunandra tribe (Alligator River tribe). Before my 

 arrival Mr. Herbert Basedow, that gifted young scientist, made a pro- 

 found study of the customs and weapons of the tribes of Palmerston 

 and of the Daly River. His paper will shortly be published. I need 

 only mention here an observation I made at Port Darwin, viz., a native 

 from Port Keats (14), Victoria River, who had a very interesting foot- 

 formation reminding one of a hand. The extreme shortness of this 

 man's big toe in relation to the second toe proved the atavistic 

 repetition of the ancestral stage of mankind in which the foot was 

 handlike. On my arrival in Adelaide I heard that Dr. Ramsay Smith 

 noted the same phenomenon before me, but he took no stereoscopic 

 photograph nor a cast in plaster of Paris, as I did. 



From Port Darwin I made a trip to Melville Island for a fortnight, 

 in a 2-ton vessel, accompanied by Mr. Joe Cooper, a buffalo hunter. 



The natives on this island are absolutely preserved in the primitive 

 stage, and are stated to be dangerous and treacherous. (15) Unlike 

 almost all other parts of the Australian coast, these black people 

 of Melville Island have never been disturbed by white immigration 

 since the only white settlement, Fort Dundas, founded in 1827 by 

 Captain Bremer, was abandoned in the year 1829. Left to themselves 

 for so long, their number did not decrease, being now approximately 

 more than a thousand. Joe Cooper and his brother are the only white 

 men who can venture to go inland, where, in the very centre of the 

 island, they have a camp, from which the hunting operations for the 

 buffaloes are undertaken. Mr. Cooper, who was speared in the neck 

 10 years ago, has introduced for defence purposes a small company of 

 mainland natives. 



The buffaloes (16) represent an enormous increase of the herd in- 

 troduced from Timor by the old settlers. It may be mentioned that 

 the natives never attempted to spear the bufi'aloes, and that they had 

 to be taufiht to appreciate their meat. 



I left Palmerston September 18th, Tuesday night, the small cutter 

 being fairly crowded by seven aboriginals ; two of them were natives 

 of Melville Island. Cape Gambler, on the south-east corner of Melville 



(14) This aboriginal was one of the murderers of the party of IVIr. Fred. Brad- 

 shaw, who was killed near Cape Scott, in his launch, together with the Russian 

 engineer Eggeroff and two other white men, Nov., 1905. 



(15) See Report on the Geological Expedition of the year 1905, by the Govern- 

 ment Geologist, Mr. H. Y. L. Brown. 



(IG) See Journal of the Geographical Society, London, vol. iv., 1829. 

 Major Campbell. — " Geographical Memoirs of Melville Island and Port Essing- 

 ton on the Coburg Peninsula." 



