COLLECTION MADE BY W. SAVILLE-KENT. F.L.S., F.Z.S., ETC. 233 



domain of anthropology, and certain of which are herewith exhibited. 

 These include several spear-heads most ingeniously manufactured by 

 the aborigines of the Kimberley Gold Field districts out of the 

 glass bottles they find round the settlers' camps, and also a formid- 

 able tomahawk cleverly constructed from the segment of an iron 

 horse-shoe. The ordinary stone axe and spear-head manufactured 

 by the same aborigines is placed beside them. A pearl shell 

 ornament worn by the female representatives of the same tribe is 

 also shown. The aborigines in the neighbourhood of Cambridge 

 Gulf were not at all approachable, their signal fires were constantly 

 visible along the sliore, and were evidently lit for the purpose of 

 warning their neighbours of the ship's presence, but on no occasion 

 did they appear within hailing distance. Respecting the signal fires 

 it was a frequent subject of remark that notwithstanding a strong 

 wind might be blowing, as evidenced by the drift of the 

 smoke of adjacent bush conflagrations, the thin line of smoke 

 from the special signal fires always ascended perpendicularly. 

 Along the route to the Kimberley Gold Fields the aborigines have 

 so far proved very treacherous and aggressive, though possibly not 

 without primary provocation. They have been known in several 

 instances to come to the settler's tents and receive food on one day, 

 and return at daybreak the next morning and attack the camp. 

 This has naturally led to reprisal and the existence of much ill 

 feeling towards the aborigines on the part or' the settlers. Unfortu- 

 n ately the dialect of the natives in these parts differs entirely from 

 that of the tribes in North Queensland, and around Port Darwin, 

 with whom amicable relations already obtain, and through whose 

 medium the attempt has been made to establish friendly interviews. 

 Trei sculpture is pactised by the aborigines of Cambridge Gulf 

 district, probably as in the case of the rock sculpture prevalent a i ong 

 other Australian races, as a means of intertribal communication o r 

 as a tribal record. Examples of such carvings embodying, so fa r 

 as decipherable, rude representations of various animals, engraved 

 on the back of a large Baobab or Bottle Tree, Adansonia Gregorii 

 were secured with considerable labour by Captain Vereker, the tree 

 being cut down and slabs including the carvings being carefully 



