Torres Straits Islanders, 195 



and Sydney, and does most of the business in connection with the 

 fisheries, conveying the shell to Sydney, and returning with a 

 cargo of tinned provisions, slops, and other stores for the use of 

 the pearl shellers. The inhabitants of Thursday Island, and those 

 belonging to the various pearl shell stations scattered through the 

 group of islands, are dependent for support upon extraneous 

 supplies of provisions. Cattle will not thrive on the islands, owing 

 to the poisonous nature of the grass, and as yet all attempts at 

 growing fruit and vegetables have in most cases proved un- 

 successful. 



The native inhabitants of the Torres Straits Islands are a small 

 tribe of Papuan origin, who lead a wandering life, and show little 

 inclination to hold intercourse with either white or coloured 

 colonists. They have the frizzled hair, the aquiline hooked nose, 

 and the wide curved lips of the Papuans ; and among their imple- 

 ments are the long " hour-glass " drum, headed with lizard skin, 

 the tortoise-shell mask worn at corrobories, and the pearl shell 

 ornaments dangling from the neck ; but their intercourse with the 

 North Australian aborigines is shown by their having acquired the 

 practice of using the "throwing sticks" for their spears. Their 

 food being almost solely of marine origin, their camps are only 

 found on the shores of the islands. At certain seasons in the 

 year they catch the turtle and dugong, and apparently in great 

 numbers, if one can judge by the quantity of bones of these 

 animals seen by us in the midden-heaps. Fish they obtain in 

 abundance by means of the hook and line, and the shore molluscs 

 also supply them with food; so that it is not to be wondered at 

 that we generally found them to be in a well-nourished condition, 

 and not at all anxious to barter their fish for such a commodity 

 as ship's biscuit. Their boats are long dug-out canoes, fitted with 

 double outriggers, and very rudely constructed. Whether under 

 sail or paddle, they manoeuvred very badly, and were on the whole 

 very poor specimens of naval architecture, even for a tribe of 

 savages. 



