NOTATION. 19 



brought into requisition. After twenty, they show by 

 signs that it is a great many, an innumerable quantity, 

 for at twenty their arithmetic is exhausted. 



As elsewhere, it is very common for white men to 

 give native names to places, or retain names of rivers 

 and mountains, such as the natives had themselves 

 given them, prior to the white man's advent. We find 

 in many of these the custom among the natives of 

 repeating a word or a sound, to give force or emphasis 

 to the idea. For instance, the river which flows 

 through Melbourne is the Yarra-Yarra flowing, 

 flowing ; that is, ever flowing. Other streams may go 

 dry, but this, never. 



I found, in travelling largely through the country, 

 many places named according to this rule : Bet-Bet, 

 Gerong-Gerung, Buln-Buln, Burrum-Burrum. This 

 last is the name of a parish, and signifies very muddy ; 

 that is, muddy, muddy. 



At Sydney we saw on the 'bus the name Wooloo- 

 mooloo, the native name of a suburb of that city. I 

 thought that the white people had purposely and 

 unnecessarily given the name that orthography, but I 

 found, on looking into the peculiarities of the language, 

 that it could not be otherwise spelled and convey a 

 correct native sound to the ear, for, while the sound of 

 u enters very largely into their language, it has always 

 with them the same sound as our oo. 



