47G TrtE TROPICAL WORLD. 



they at last fairly eat their way into the whale. Thus tliey 

 remain by the carcase for many days, rubbed from head to foot 

 with stinking blubber, gorged to repletion with putrid meat, 

 out of temper from indigestion, and therefore constantly 

 quarrelling, suffering from a cutaneous disorder by high feeding, 

 and presenting altogether a most disgusting spectacle. A 

 native girl stepping out of the carcase of a putrid whale is 

 indeed a sight very different from that of a sea-born Venus 

 emerging from her shell. When they at last quit their feast, 

 they carry off as much as they can stagger under, to eat upon 

 the way, and to take as a rare treat to their distant friends. 



TJiough in many respects so utterly barbarous, the Australians 

 are not guilty of the cannibalism so prevalent among the 

 islanders of the Papuan race and in many parts of the Indian 

 Archipelago, where, by a strange anomaly, we find it practised 

 by nations standing much higher in the scale of civilisation. 



The inventions of the throwing-stick for darting the spear, 

 and of the well-known weapon called the boomerang ; the sound 

 policy of many of their laws and regulations, and the fact that 

 Australian children educated in England have shown the same 

 aptitude in learning as white children of the same age, suffi- 

 ciently prove that these savages are by no means deficient in 

 intelligence. 



As to their moral qualities, their apparent honesty results in 

 a great measure from there being few European articles for 

 which they have any use ; articles of food, or a knife, or a 

 hatchet are by no means safe where thej^ can get at them. 

 Their behaviour to their women is often very bad ; they beat 

 and even spear them on the most trifling occasions. Different 

 tribes vary in the most extraordinary way in their friendliness 

 or hostility to strangers. They appear to be very capricious, 

 and always act on the whim or the impulse of the moment, so 

 that the same people, who to-day may be kind assistants in the 

 hour of need, will to-morrow be guilty of the grossest acts of 

 treachery. 



