10 MIGRATION OF THE NATIVES. 



diffused. The rite of circumcision, for instance, is 

 only performed at King's Sound, on the west side 

 of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and near the head of 

 the Australian hight on the south. Mr. Eyre, 

 who discovered the existence of the rite on the 

 last mentioned part of the continent, infers that 

 the natives of the places I have mentioned must 

 have had some communication with each other 

 through the interior ; but it is possible that at 

 a distant period of time, circumcision may have 

 been very generally practised, and that having 

 become gradually disused, the custom is now only 

 preserved at two or three points, widely separated 

 from each other. I do not advance this as a theory, 

 but simply as a suggestion, as there is some diffi- 

 culty in supposing communication to have taken 

 place across the continent. 



Some light may be thrown on the migration of 

 the aboriginal inhabitants of Australia, by tracing 

 the parts of the coast on which canoes are in use. 

 It has already been mentioned, that we had not seen 

 any westward of Clarence Strait, neither were they 

 in use in the bottom of the Gulf of Carpentaria, nor 

 on the south coast.* By the assistance of these and 

 similar facts, we may hereafter be enabled to dis- 

 cover the exact direction in which the streams of 



* An inference may be drawn from the parts of the shore on 

 •which canoes are in use, to shew that the migrations of the natives, 

 so far southwards, have been along the coast. The raft they use 

 is precisely the same in make and size on the whole extent of 

 the North-west coast. 



