410 NATIVE FAMILY. 



to get near enough to make the woman a present 

 of a handkerchief, in return for which she gave me 

 a large leaf of the cabbage palm, that was slung 

 across her back. I at length drew all the family 

 around me, the eldest child, a youth of about 15, 

 being the most timid. He had a small piece of 

 wood two feet long, sticking through the cartilage 

 of his nose. His teeth and those of the other 

 children were quite perfect, but in the father and 

 mother two of the upper front ones were gone, as 

 we before noticed was the case with the natives at 

 Port Essington, where this ceremony is performed 

 after marriage. The hair of these people was 

 neither curly nor straight, but what I have before 

 called crisp, being of that wavy nature sometimes 

 noticed in Europeans. 



They had with them three small sized dogs of a 

 light brown colour, of which they appeared very 

 fond, and I could not induce them to part with 

 them. 



The old man's spear was not barbed, and the 

 wamara or throwing stick of the same long narrow 

 shape as at Port Essington. The woman had also 

 the same bottle-shaped basket slung over her neck, 

 as before remarked, and containing white and red 

 earths for painting their bodies. 



These people exhibited more curiosity than I 

 had before noticed in the Aborigines, as I was able 

 to induce them to visit the whale boat that was on 

 shore close by. Here, as in other places, the size 



