294 



side of them when lying down to sleep. It made quite a jjictur- 

 esque sight when the four blacks after dark went in search of 

 firewood, each with a burning faggot of grass in liis hand, moving 

 Vjackward and forward amongst the bushes. 



9</i June. — Seeing the blacks digging away at some roots I 

 stopped and watched their proceedings. They were after some 

 ants and worked away with their yam-stick at the root of a small 

 decayed Mulga, that showed the grooves of the insect. After 

 loosening the soil with the yam-stick, they removed it with the 

 " wera " that acts like a scoop. The pregnant female they were 

 looking for was nearly at the bottom of the tap root, a few feet 

 below the surface. She has a cyst of nearly half-an-inch in 

 diameter on the abdomen, which is filled with a semitransparent 

 yellowish fluid ; it is called "manniia ilka " by them, and mucJi 

 enjoyed when sucked. . . . There is a rock-shelter near the 

 camp that is probably often frequented by blacks as the paintings 

 on the rock and the ashes and charcoal-remains of recent fires 

 seem to prove. At the base of the small granite range, about 

 two and a-half miles from the soak, are two native wells close to 

 one another, filled with tine clear water. On the fiat faces of the 

 diorite dyke at the top of the range several very regularly shaped 

 circles were found scratched into the rocks. 



\Zth June. — Billy (the first black who came to us near the 

 Everard Range and followed us ever since) had tracked an emu 

 and came in with three eggs. We had one of the two he gave us 

 for supper between the two of us, but Billy ate his, which was a 

 very large one, after an entrc oi an iguana about 18 inches long, 

 followed by an opossum for second course. All these victuals 

 were cooked in the hot sand and tasted delicious, which no doubt 

 induced Billy to cook a second iguana at once and another 

 opossum afterwards. An emu egg, two iguanas and two opossums, 

 besides some tea and bread, I think is a fair record of a black's 

 appetite. We had only a little of one of the iguanarS each to try 

 it, and a leg of one of the opossums, and I must confess that the 

 blacks' v/ay of cooking is the most excellent method of retaining 

 the flavour and juice. The opossums were plucked like a bird, 

 which is the general way of removing the fur of the game, and 

 then baked in their skin after the entrails had been removed 

 througli a small incision tliat was afterwards stopped up with 

 grass. Tlie iguanas were cooked without any preparation. After 

 cooking, the skin peels off easily and the flesh looks delicately 

 white, juicy, smoking and savoury. 



15<A ■June. — The rocks we had seen to the east proved to be a 

 sandstone ridge running nearly north and south, with an escarp- 

 ment looking west. Here in a low rock-shelter some native 

 drawings were found, but on the face of an escarpment running 



