THE STONE AGE — PAST AND PRESENT. 201 



the place where they were made. They are only inferior 

 to the finest celts of the same material from New Zealand, 

 in wanting the accm'acy of outline which the Maori would have 

 given, and the conscientious labour with which he would have 

 ground down the whole surface till every inequality or flaw 

 had disapjoeared, whereas the Australian has been content 

 with polishing into the hollow places, instead of grinding them 

 out. Were we obliged to infer, from the presence of these 

 high-class celts in Australia, that the natives in one part of the 

 country had themselves developed the making of stone imple- 

 ments so immensely beyond the rest of their race, while they 

 remained in other respects in the same low state of civilization, 

 the quality of stone implements would have to be pretty much 

 given up as a test of culture anywhere. Fortunately there is 

 an easier way out of the difficulty. Polished instruments of 

 this green jade have been, long ago or recently, one of the 

 most important items of manufacture in the islands of the 

 Indian Ocean and the Pacific, and the South Australians may 

 have learnt from some Malay or Polynesian source the art of 

 shaping these high-class weapons. The likelihood of this bemg 

 their real history is strengthened by proofs we have of inter- 

 course between Australia and the surrounding islands. Besides 

 the known yearly visits of the trepang-fishers of Macassar to 

 the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the appearance of the outrigger- 

 canoe in Bast Australia in Captain Cook's time, there is my- 

 thological evidence which seems to carry proof of connexion far 

 down the east coast. 



Another coincidence of this kind may be mentioned here, 

 though in the absence of collateral evidence it would be un- 

 wise to draw any conclusion from it. There is a well-known 

 New Zealand weapon, the mere, or pdhi-fatu. It is an edged 

 club of bone or stone, which has been compared to a beaver's 

 tail, or is still more like a soda-water bottle with the bulb 

 flattened, and it is a very efiective weapon in a hand-to-hand 

 fight, being so sharp that a man's skull may be split at one 

 blow with it. Through the neck it has a hole for a wrist-cord. 

 The mere is made of the bone of a whale, or of stone, and the 

 finest, which are of green jade and worked with immense 



