EYRE'S PENINSULA 135 



useless for museum purposes; when I lifted a skull it 

 crumbled to white powder in my hands. We gathered 

 many granite pounding-stones, quartz scrapers, and 

 other primitive implements. One skeleton discovered 

 rested in a depression, with pounding stones ranged 

 about it, one at the head, another at the feet, and 

 several on either side. Delving in the sand was not 

 very fruitful, but had we been able to spend a few 

 days among the dunes, interesting discoveries would 

 surely have been made. Standing in the midst of 

 this untended graveyard of a people whose name also 

 has perished, I remembered a passage in Sir Thomas 

 Browne's "Hydriotaphia" : 



"But who knows the fate of his bones, or how 

 often he is to be buried? Who hath the oracle of his 

 ashes, or whither they are to be scattered?" 



Further along the coast a series of dilapidated 

 stone-walled ponds was discovered. Perchance the 

 very natives whose bones we had seen on the dunes 

 made these traps, into which fish were driven from 

 the sea, and speared. After exploring Horse 

 Peninsula, we followed the main coast line, along the 

 cliffs. The geologists were busy with their ham- 

 mers, tapping specimens from the rocks, until their 

 canvas satchels were filled. We rested at a spot of 

 mournful historic interest, where the cliff formed a 

 headland rising from a mass of jagged rocks, on 

 which the waves broke in a smother of foam. The 

 story is told that, in the early days, fifty or more of 

 the wretched natives, who had speared some sheep, 

 were driven by armed settlers on to this cliff, and 

 forced over the edge to perish. There are dark pages 

 in Australian history. 



Returning to Horse Peninsula, where the vehicle 

 had been left in charge of the driver, we packed up 

 our collections, and in the cool of the evening drove 

 to Lake Wangary. 



