FOOD. 



347 



which covered quite half an acre, and were as much as ten 

 feet high. They seem, however, to have been first noticed 

 by Dampier.* 



The food of the Australian savages differs much in different 

 parts of the continent. Speaking generally, it may be said 

 to consist of various roots, fruits, fungi, shellfish, frogs, 

 insects, birds' eggs, birds, fish, turtles, kangaroo, dog, and 

 sometimes of seal and whale, f They are not, however, so 

 far as I am aware, able to kill whales for themselves, but 

 when one is washed on shore it is a real godsend to them. 

 Fires are immediately lit, to give notice of the joyful event. 

 Then they rub themselves all over with blubber, and 

 anoint their favourite wives in the same way ; after which 

 they cut down through the blubber to the beef, which they 

 sometimes eat raw and sometimes broil on pointed sticks. 

 As other natives arrive they '" fairly eat their way into the 

 whale, and you see them climbing in and about the stinking 

 carcase, choosing titbits." For days "they remain by the 

 carcase, rubbed from head to foot with stinking blubber, 

 gorged to repletion with putrid meat out of temper from 

 indigestion, and therefore engaged in constant frays suffer- 

 ing from a cutaneous disorder by high feeding and alto- 

 gether a disgusting spectacle. There is no sight in the 

 world," Captain Grey adds, "more revolting than to see a 

 young and gracefully-formed native girl stepping out of the 

 carcase of a putrid whale." The Australians also mash up 

 bones and suck out the fat contained in them, as already 

 described (p. 248). They are excessively fond of fatty 

 substances. 



In a cave on the north-eastern coast, Mr. Cunningham 

 observed certain "tolerable figures of sharks, porpoises, 

 turtles, lizards, trepang, starfish, clubs, canoes, water- 



* Pinkerton's Voyages, vol. ii., p. 473. 

 f Grey's Explorations in North- West and Western Australia, p. 263. 



