120 TROPIC DAYS 



wallowed in the wet sand, too fearful to trust their 

 lives to so big a thing which showed itself to be alive 

 by breathing and moving. The morning was spent in 

 moist frolics, and when the north-easter began to work 

 up a little sea, which spoke in menacing tones, the 

 terrified strangers withdrew. 



Late in the afternoon the corroboree began, many of 

 the participators having spent hours in the assumption 

 of the festive costume of the down of sulphur-crested 

 cockatoos plastered to the skin with grease and the 

 blood. It is not to be supposed that white down in the 

 hands of experienced dressers is incapable of variation 

 in style. Several original designs excited the appro- 

 bation of spectators. The down was arranged in tufts 

 following the perpendiculars of the body from shoulder 

 to shin, or in a series of circles accurately spaced, or in 

 intersecting spirals, while the heads of all performers 

 and combatants were converted into white mops. 



And with the clapping of hollowed hands and the 

 clicking of boomerangs the function began. And having 

 danced to their own satisfaction and the delight of the 

 crowd, the warriors with ostentation and bluster recited 

 private grievances and challenged those against whom 

 they had real or fancied wrongs to combat. Most of 

 the noisy declamation was ill-founded. The many had 

 no grievances and no intentions of fighting, but out of 

 the shouting crowd stepped two big men who sought 

 compensation for "another Helen." Though not lovely 

 or winsome or an heiress, she sufficed as the motive for 

 an honourable and public strife, quite as sincere as 

 many of the scuffles without the walls of Troy. Spears 

 and boomerangs were thrown viciously and dodged and 

 evaded skilfully until one of the men found a boomerang 

 sticking fast in his leg. The wound was decisive, and 

 with much hullabaloo the defeated warrior limped away, 



