AMUSEMENTS. 85 



conquerors are matclied ; and the last couple decide the championship. The event 

 is followed by a promiscuous wrestling, and the game terminates with shouting, 

 just as among white people. 



One of the favourite games is football, in which fifty, or as many as one 

 hundred players engage at a time. The ball is about the size of an orange, and 

 is made of opossum-skin, with the fur side outwards. It is filled with pounded 

 charcoal, which gives solidity without much increase of weight, and is tied hard 

 round and round with kangaroo sinews. The players are divided into two sides 

 and ranged in opposing lines, which are always of a difierent ' class' — white 

 cockatoo against black cockatoo, quail against snake, &c. Each side endeavours 

 to keep possession of the ball, which is tossed a short distance by hand, and then 

 kicked in any direction. The side which kicks it oftenest and furthest gains the 

 game. The person who sends it highest is considered the best player, and has 

 the honour of burying it in the ground till required next day. 



The sport is concluded with a shout of applause, and the best player is 

 complimented on his skill. This game, which is somewhat similar to the white 

 man's game of football, is very rough ; but as the players are barefooted and 

 naked, they do not hurt each other so much as the white people do ; nor is the 

 fact of an aborigine being a good football player considered to entitle him to assist 

 in making laws for the tribe to which he belongs. 



The throwing of spears at a mark is a common amusement. Young people 

 engage in the pastime with toy spears. A number of boys will arrange 

 themselves in a line : one of the party will trundle swiftly along the ground, 

 about ten yards in front of them, a circular piece of thick bark about a foot in 

 diameter, and, as it passes them, each tries to hit it with his toy spear. They 

 amuse themselves also with throwing wands^ fern stalks, and rushes at objects, 

 and at each other. 



The toy boomerang is much lighter and more acute in the angle than the 

 war boomerang, and has a peculiar rounding of one of its sides, which has the effect 

 of making it rise in the air when thrown along the ground, and return to the 

 thrower when its impetus has been expended. It requires much skill, and study 

 of the wind, to throw it aright. On dark nights this boomerang will sometimes 

 be lighted at one end and thrown into the air, with an effect very like fireworks. 

 This boomerang is also thrown into flocks of ducks, parrots, and small birds, 

 among which it commits great havoc — occasionally cutting off their heads as with 

 a knife. 



