268 SINGULAR CEREMONIES. [CH. VI. 



man, and their two gins. These persons had followed us far, 

 gathering the tribes and leading them forward to pilfer ; but 

 the ceremony they went through, when the others were gone, 

 was most incomprehensible, and seemed to express no good 

 intentions. The two old men moving slowly, in opposite 

 directions, made an extensive circuit of our camp; the one 

 waving a green branch over his head, and occasionally 

 shaking it violently at us, and throwing dust towards us, 

 now and then sitting down and rubbing himself over with 

 dust. The other took the band from his head, and waved 

 it in gestures equally furious, occasionally throwing dust 

 also. When they met, after each had paced half round our 

 position, they turned their backs on each other, waving their 

 branches as they faced about, then shaking them at us, and 

 afterwards again rubbing themselves with dust. On complet- 

 ing their circumambulation, they coolly resumed their seats, at 

 a fire some little way from our camp. An hour or two after 

 this ceremony, I observed them seated at a fire made close 

 to our tents, and on going out of mine, they called to me, 

 upon which I went and sat down with them as usual, rather 

 curious to know the meaning of the extraordinary ceremony 

 we had witnessed. I could not, however, discover any 

 change in their demeanour ; they merely examined my boots 

 and clothes, as if they thought them already their own. 

 Meanwhile king Peter and his tribe were much more sensibly 

 occupied in the river, catching fishes. 



These tribes inhabiting the banks of the Darling may be 

 considered Ichthyophagi, in the strictest sense, and their mode 

 of fishing was really an interesting sight. There was an un- 

 usually deep and broad reach of the river opposite to our 

 camp, and it a))i)eared tliat they fished daily in different 

 portions of it, in the following manner. The king stood 

 erect in his bark canoe, wliile nine young men, with short 

 spears, went up the river, and as many down, until, at a 

 signal from him, all dived info it, and returned towards him, 



