Extracts from Phillips's Account of New Holland. 



from the following account evident that they have the 

 custom and practice of burning their dead. 



The ground had been observed to be raised in several 

 places, like the ruder kind of graves of the common people 

 in England, Governor Phillips ordered some of these bar- 

 rows to be opened. In one of them a jaw-bone was found 

 not quite consumed, but in general they contained only 

 ashes. From the manner in which these ashes were dis- 

 posed, it appeare4 that the body must have been laid at 

 length, raised from the ground a few inches only, or just 

 enoug-Ji to admit a fire under it, and having been consume^ 

 in this posture it must then have been lightly covered over 

 with mold ; fern is generally spread upon the surface with a 

 few stones to keep it from being dispersed with the wind. 

 These graves have not been found in very great numbers, 

 nor ever near their huts. 



The natives of New South Wales, though in so rude 

 and uncivilized a state as not even to have made an attempt 

 towards clothing themselves, notwithstanding that at times 

 they suffer from the cold and wet, are not without notions 

 of sculpture. In all these excursions of Governor Phillips, 

 and in the neighbourhood of Botany Bay and Port Jackson, 

 the figures of animals, of shields and weapons, and even of 

 men, have been seen carved upon the rocks, roughly 

 indeed, but sufficiently well to ascertain very fully what 

 was the object intended. Fish were often represented, and 

 in one place the form of a large Lizard was sketched out 

 with very tolerable accuracy. On the top of one of these 

 hills the figure of a man in the attitude usually assumed 

 by them when they begin to dance was executed in a still 

 superior style. That the arts of imitation and amusement 

 should thus in any degree precede those of necessity, seems 



