508 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



* SMOKE PUFFS. 



At Port I)arwin the natives at times make a complex signal by 

 the use of one or more sheets of bark of large size. The sheet is 

 set on end before the fire, and by a sudden dowTiward flap of the 

 ibark sheet the smoke is suddenlj' driven away sideways, then 

 rising into the air parallel to the parent smoke. By repetitions and 

 alternate flaps from the opposite side numerous variations are 

 obtained by the operating signallers. 



PARALLELS. 



At times dark smoke-producing material is laid (by the same 

 tribe) in the centre of a clear fire of dry fuel. The resulting dark 

 smoke from this superimposed material is caught in the lower 

 mouth of a tube formed of bark, the upper mouth being held 

 outside of the rising volume of pale smoke. The dark smoke is 

 thus made to rise outside of, bvit parallel with, the pale smoke of 

 the parent fire. Balls, or balloons, or cloudlets of smoke are 

 produced in the column of uprushing heated air in such manner 

 as to secure a succession of five or so in sight at once. The small 

 iDodies of smoke are so formed a^ to rise at fairly regular intervals, 

 either as to space or time. The time intervals may be half-minutes, 

 or may be hours, as the signal requires. Sometimes the column 

 is interrupted a few times only in the course of a day. Variations 

 may also depend upon the quantity of dark smoke-producing 

 material laid on the fire at any one time. The signaller may play 

 a '' dot " and " dash" effect on his smoke with any variation as to 

 rapidity of "dots" or length of "'dashes" his code may require. 



Interruptions are variously secured. Larger or smaller quantity 

 of material superimposed upon the fire; a rug held over the 

 column of rising smoke to gather the smoke in a body beneath it ; 

 qiack removal of the rug releasing the puff or ball for its ascent ; 

 or smothering down the smoke by quickly and thickly super- 

 imposed boughs of trees or bushes, the equally sudden removal 

 permitting the puffs or cloudlets to rise again, or the column of 

 dark smoke continue to rise without further interruption, as the 

 signaller may determine. 



FESTOONS OF SMOKE. 



f Festoons of smoke in connection with luhra stealing are 

 visually used by a native moving rapidly who wishes to convey a 

 quickly passing message to his own people. A string of grass, 

 tied together, having been made by the native as he runs (for he 

 is genei-ally being pursued) the festoon is hung upon the boughs 

 of a convenient tree, and having been lighted, thi^ signaller speeds 

 on in a zigzag course. 



* Mr. T. A. Parkhouse, Adelaide. t Barrow Creek tribe. 



