206 Cruise of the "Alert" 



two kinds. The most common is about four feet in length, flat 

 and lathlike, and is peculiar in having the angular hook, which 

 engages the butt of the spear, projecting in a plane at right 

 angles to the flat surface of the stick. The other is a light 

 cylindrical stick tapering from the handle end, and its hook 

 consists of a conical-shaped piece of wood, which is secured at 

 an oblique angle to the distal end by means of gum and fibre 

 lashings. The clubs are about four feet long, are made of a hard 

 heavy wood of a red colour, and are fashioned with double 

 trenchant edges towards the striking end, so that a moderate 

 blow from one of these formidable weapons would effectually 

 cleave open any ordinary skull. The boomerang is not used in 

 this part of Australia. 



Small-pox has made sad ravages among this tribe of natives, and 

 accounts for the large proportion whom we found to be wholly or 

 partially blind. 



The season of the north-east monsoon had just come to a 

 close, and with it the drought and intermittent fever which render 

 Port Darwin an undesirable residence for six months of the year. 

 Calms usually prevail during the month of November, and in 

 December the N.W. monsoon is ushered in by copious showers of 

 rain, an event looked forward to with much satisfaction by the 

 inhabitants of Port Darwin. The annual rainfall during the last 

 half-a-dozen years has ranged from fifty-six to seventy-seven inches, 

 nearly all of which is precipitated during the months of December, 

 January, February, March, and April. Strange to say, during the 

 rainy season the settlement is healthy and entirely free from 

 malarial fever. But shortly before our arrival there had been an 

 epidemic of beriberi — a disease not indigenous to Australia — which 

 had probably been introduced by the Chinese immigrants. 



I devoted one forenoon during low water springtides to an 

 inspection of the beach between tide marks, but excepting a few 

 sponges obtained nothing of particular interest. The beaches in 

 the immediate vicinity of our anchorage were smothered with a 



