INTRODUCTION. IX. 



luuiiber of their mui'al paintings, and a vcfy large eolleetion of their weapons anil 

 instruments. 



The Oenti-al Australian aborigine is the li\ing I'epresentative of a stone age, 

 who still fashions his spear-heads and knives from Hint or sandstone and performs 

 the most daring surgical operations with them. His origin and liistory are 

 lost in the gloomy mists of the past. He has no written records and few oral 

 traditions. In appearance he is a naked, hirsute savage, with a type of featurt-s 

 occasionally pronouncedly Jewish. He is hy nature light-hearted, merry and pront; 

 to laughter, a .splendid mimic, supi)le-jointed, with an unerring hand that works 

 in perfect unison with his eye, which is as keen as that of an eagle. He has 

 never been known to wash. He has no private ownership of land, except as 

 regards that which is not over carefully concealed about his person. He cultivates 

 nothing, but lives entirely on the spoils of tlu; chase, and although the therometer 

 fix'ijuently raiigt^s fiom 15 degrees to over 90 degi'e(;s F. in twenty-four hours, and 

 his country is by no means devoid of furred game, he makes no use of the skins for 

 clothing, but goes about during the day and sleeps in the open at night [x'lfc^ctly 

 nude. He builds no permanent habitation and usually camps where night or 

 fatigue overtakes him. 



He can travel from point to point for hundreds of miles through tlic pathless 

 bush with unerring precision, and can track an animal over rocks and stones, 

 where a European eye would be unable to distinguish a mark. He is a ket^n 

 observer and knows the habits and changes of form of every variety of animal or 

 vegetable life in his country. Religious belief he lias none, but is excessively 

 superstitious, living in constant dread of an Evil Spirit which is supposed to lurk 

 I'ound his camp at night. He has no gratitude except that of the anticipatory 

 order, and is as treacherous as Judas. He has no traditions, and yet contiiuies to 

 practise with scrupulous exactness a number of hideous customs and ceremonies 

 which have lieen handed from his fathei's, and of the origin or reason of which he 

 knows nothing. Uft-times kind and t'ven all'ectionate to those of his childieii who 

 have been permitted to live, he yet practises, without any reason except that his 

 father did so before him, the most cruel and revolting mutillations upon the young 

 men and maidens of his trilje. 



Yet withal lie is a philosopher who accepts feast or famine without a murmur 

 eitlu'r at the pangs of hunger or the discomforts of ri'pletion. His motto is " Carpc 

 die/ii,'' and when fortune sends him a supply of game lu' consumes it all, regardless 

 of to-morrow. No cold missionary graces his side-board, and sh(juld hungci-, as a 

 penalty for his improvident gluttony, overtake him, he simply ties a thin hair- 

 girdle tightly rountl his stomach, and almost persuades him.self that he is still 



