in 2JCcrticular of the Port Lincoln District. 193 



clul)s and thunderbolts. Tliey 2;o so far as to say that liglit- 

 ninj^ is the creation of Pulyalanna, caused by his stretching 

 his legs widely apart during one of his fits of rage. 



The large red species of kangaroo, which is often seen 

 in the north, is not found in the Port Lincoln district, and 

 to judge from the following fablcf, one of these animals must 

 liavc M'andercd to this place. Kupirri, so this animal was 

 named, is said to have been of such enormous size, that he 

 swallowed each and all who endeavoured to kill him with 

 their spears. His aspect alone filled the natiA^es with such 

 fright, that they lost all presence of mind, and flung the 

 wooden sling, middla, as Avell as the spear, which of course 

 caused the latter to lose its eficct. 



At last two expert hunters were found equal to combat this 

 monster. They were called Pilla and Idnya, who discovered 

 his track in the ranges running north of Port Lincoln. They 

 traced them for about thirty miles from Port Lincoln, came up 

 to him at Mount Nilawo ; finding the beast asleep, they 

 immediately attacked it, but before they were aware of it, 

 their spears became blunted, which difficulty must have been 

 most inopportune for them. They fell into a violent dispute, 

 and Pilla wounded his antagonist in several parts of the body 

 with the blunted spear, receiving at the same time a cut across 

 the nose from his adversary's middla. They soon, however, 

 made peace and killed the Kupirii, and great was their 

 astonishment, upon opening the animal, to find in his belly 

 several of their swallowed comrades ; but being as expert 

 doctors as hunters, they brought the unfortunate natives to 

 life again, and all made preparations to broil and eat the 

 monster. After the meal was finished, and after they had 

 smeared themselves with the fat of the animal, they set out to 

 communicate to the sorroAving wives the happy issue of their 

 adventure. The two heroes were later transformed into two 

 species of animal, the opossum and the wild cat, which have 

 not alone their origin from them, but which bear at the pre- 

 sentday the names and the marks of the wounds they had given 

 each otlicr, by tlie opossum, in the shape of a furrow running 

 from the head to the tip of the nose, and the wild cat in the 

 foiTQ of spots over the whole of the skin. 



Between Coffin and Sleaford bays I remarked an immense 

 quantity of sandhills of great size, which on Capt. Plinders 

 map were falsely rcjiresentod as Avhite clifls. These mountains 

 of drift-sand have br(>n heaped up by the west winds, and con- 

 stantly change their shape and position. According to the tradi- 



