3 8 2 ACCOUNT OF THE ENGLISH COLONY [October, 



During the time that Booroong, a native girl, lived at Sydney, {he 

 paid occafional vifits to the lower part of the harbour. From one of 

 thefe fhe returned extremely ill. On being queftioned as to the caufe, 

 for none was apparent, fhe faid that the women of Cam-mer-ray had 

 made water in a path which they knew fhe was to pafs,and it had made 

 her ill. Thefe women were inimical to her, as fhe belonged to the 

 Botany Bay diftridt. On her intimating to them that fhe found her- 

 felf ill, they told her triumphantly what they had done. Not recover- 

 ing, though bled by a furgeon, fhe underwent an extraordinary and 

 fuperftitious operation, where the operator fuffers more than the pa- 

 tient. She was feated. on the ground, with one of the lines worn by 

 the men paffed round her head once, taking care to fix the knot in the 

 centre of her forehead ; the remainder of the line was taken by another 

 girl, who fat at a fin all diftance from her, and with the end of it fretted 

 her lips until they bled very copioufly ; Boo-roong imagining all the 

 time that the blood came from her head, and paffed along the line 

 until it ran into the girl's mouth. This operation they term be an- 

 ny, and it is the peculiar province of the women. 



Another curious inftance of their fuperftition occurred among f .me 

 of our people belonging to a boat that was lying wind-bound in the 

 lower part of the harbour. They had procured fome fhell-fifh, and 

 during the night were preparing to roaft them, when they were ob- 

 ferved by one of the natives, who fhook his head, and exclaimed, that 

 the wind for which they were waiting would not rife if they roafled 

 the fifh. His argument not preventing the failors from enjoying 

 their treat, and the wind actually proving foul, they, in their turn, 

 gave an inftance of their fuperftition by abufmg the native, and attri- 

 buting to him the foul wind which detained them. On queftioning 

 the favage refpeding this circumftance, it appeared that they never 

 broiled fifh by night. Thefe people tell a ftory of a rock falling on 

 and crufhing fome natives who were whiftling under it ; for which 

 reafon they make it an invariable rule never to whiftle when beneath 

 a rock. 



Among 



