THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA. 31 



The boys had been taken from the wild tribes, had had no more 

 than a few months' intercourse with white men, yet could talk 

 English well, were very intelligent, and sang English songs very 

 prettily. From all I gathered in Australia (and I visited every part 

 between Port Darwin, along Queensland, down to Adelaide) these 

 aborigines, reputed to be one of the lowest races of mankind, 

 appear to have in them all the powers with which man is endowed, 

 and the rising generation is capable of being formed into respectable 

 civilised and religious communities. Of course, from Port Darwin 

 to Brisbane was the most available field for inquiry, as the natives 

 there have not been so entirely " wiped out," or, at least, are more 

 easily reached than in New South. Wales, Victoria, or South 

 Australia. In fact, from all I gathered, this appears to offer the 

 greatest opportunities for success of all the foreign, fields of mission 

 work that I have seen. 



Analogy (d\ "the fish-shaped roarer," which the author com- 

 pares with the Chaldsean god, half man half fish, requires notice, 

 as to the wide-spread relics of fish-worship. The god Vishnu 

 (of India) is described as "incarnate, in the form of a Jish, 

 to recover the sacred books lost in the Deluge." The fish was 

 worshipped by the Cuthites or Phoenicians, and relics thereof 

 appear abundantly in Ireland (in which country the round towers 

 are perhaps the best known remains of this very early race). On 

 one of the ancient and beautiful pre-Christian crosses at Kells, 

 county Meath, I have lately seen a carving of six men on their 

 knees worshipping a huge fish as big as themselves. When I was 

 at Fuchau, on the Min river, in China, in October, 1886, I visited 

 the Kushan (Buddhist) monastery, situated aloft in the seclusion of 

 a mountain dell ; there is here a huge tank or pond full of sacred 

 fish, mostly perch, some of which are an enormous size. The wor- 

 shippers at these shrines can, for a few " cash " (a cash is about l-25th 

 of a penny), buy a lot of biscuits, which they throw into the pond, and 

 immediately the holy fish rise in hundreds to the surface and devour 

 the offerings of the devotees. 



The mention of fire worship in Analogy (g) is rather too 

 brief. The author might at least have said that this is none 

 other than the worship of Baal. Abundant traces thereof are 

 preserved to this day in Ireland, in names of places or dedications 

 of ancient temples to Cuthite demigods transformed into Christian 

 saints, all of whom are now represented as having lived about the 

 time of St. Patrick, but there yet remains a tradition at Glenda- 



