MURRUMBIDGEE, LOWER LACHLAN, AND LOWER DARLING. 65 
to the preceding one, excepting only that the frail ones and the 
children remain behind on this occasion, delectating with much 
gusto on the fruits of the first expedition. 
As long as the laarp is obtainable these people continue day 
after day to tramp backwards and forwards to the ground where 
it is produced, and it is only when the rains come and dissolve it 
that they leave and return to their usual avocations. 
Should the /aarp harvest extend over six or eight weeks, which 
it frequently does, the aborigines become quite fat and sleek, 
although they partake of very little other food all the time, thus 
demonstrating how very great the nutriment must be which this 
saccharine substance contains. 
Poetry. 
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shape of sentiment, in the intercourse of the sexes, leaves the most 
fruitful of all poetical fields but a barren waste. Their tchowies 
(songs) to which they dance their corrobories never comprise 
more than two lines, and even those do not rhyme; the measure 
however is always most perfect. As a rule, their brief songs have 
reference either to something good to eat, to some successful mid- 
night foray, or to some grossly lewd subject, and those partaking 
of the latter nature meet with the greatest appreciation. 
chowies are not transmitted from one generation to another, 
because, when the maker of a tchowie dies, all the songs of which 
he was author are as it were buried with him, inasmuch as they, 
m common with his very name, are studiously ignored from 
thenceforward, consequently they are quite forgotten in a very 
rt space of time indeed. . 
This custom of endeavouring persistently to forget everything 
which had been in any way connected with the dead entirely 
precludes the possibility of anything of an historical nature having 
existence amongst them ; in fact the most vital occurrence, if only 
dating a single generation back, is quite forgotten, that 1s to say, 
if the recounting thereof should necessitate the mention of a 
defunct aboriginal’s name. 
CoRROBORIES. 
Their corrobories, with regard to diversity, are about as meagre 
as are their tchowies ; they merely consist of a series of grotesque 
contortions and coarse postures, all however requiring const 
see muscular exertion in their performance, and all (strange 
though it may seem) performed in most execllent time. When seen 
or the first time, a corroborie does certainly offer a considerable 
gree of interest ; I of course do not mean such as are got up 
iH 
T- 
