164 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
The same author, page 5, describes another locality as follows: 
In New South Wales, in the neighborhood of Botany bay and port Jackson, the 
figures of animals, of shields and weapons, and even of men, have been found carved 
upon the rocks, roughly, indeed, but sufficiently well to ascertain very fully what 
was the object intended. Fish were often represented, and in one place the form of 
a large lizard was sketched out with tolerable accuracy. On top of one of the hills 
the figure of a man, in the attitude usually assumed by them when they begin to 
dance, was executed in a still superior style. 
The figure last mentioned was probably the god Daramiultin, see 
Howitt, Australian Customs of Initiation (a). 
A special account of the aboriginal rock carvings at the head of 
Bantry bay is furnished by R. Etheridge, jr. (@), as follows, the illus- 
tration referred to being presented here as Fig. 132: 
Of the numerous traces of aboriginal rock carvings to be seen on the shores of Port 
Jackson, none probably equal in extent or completeness of detail those on the heights 
at the head and on the eastern side of Bantry bay, Middle harbor, Australia. 
The table of sandstone over which the carvings are scattered measures 2 chains 
in one direction by 3 in the contrary, and has a gentle slope of 7 degrees to the south- 
west. The high road as now laid ont passes over a portion of them, * ~*~ * 
of Y 
Fic. 132.—Petroglyphs at Bantry bay, Australia. 
The figures are represented in their present state in outline by a continuous inden- 
tation or groove from 1 to 14 inches broad by half an inch to 1 inch in depth. Some 
are single subjects scattered promiscuously over the surface; others form small 
groups, illustrating compound subjects, but all appear to have been executed about 
one and the same time. oe Unis 
An advance on the other sculptures existing at this place seems to be made in the 
originals of the designs a and b, from the fact that an attempt was apparently made to 
represent a compound idea in the form of a single combat between two warriors. The 
figures are quite contiguous to one another. The individual marked a seems to be 
holding in his right hand a body similar to that represented as ce, and the position in 
which it is held would lend color to the belief in its shieid-like nature. In the op- 
posite hand are a bundle of rods which have been suggested to be spears, and this 
explanation for the want of a better may be accepted. On the other hand, we are 
contron ted with the fact that these weapons of offense and defense are held in the 
wrong hands, unless the holder be regarded as sinistral; otherwise it must be con- 
ceived that the warrior’s back is presented to the observer, which is contrary to the 
other evidence existing in the carving. ‘The opponent, marked as b, with legs astride 
and arms outstretched much in the position of an aboriginal when throwing the 
boomerang, is equally definitive. I conceive it quite possible that the position of 
