BLOOMFIELD RIVER 
CHAP. 
1 14 
off with him. The deserted one made his way here 
one night and creeping into the camp speared his faith- 
less wife in two places, then ran for his life. Everyone 
was awakened by wild shrieks from the natives, but the 
disappointed husband was off like the wind. 
Flesh wounds these natives don’t seem to mind, 
treating them with a kind of healing clay which is 
smeared over them, but measles and other diseases 
carry them off at once. It is sad to see the numbers 
who have been wounded by guns, and here, at any rate, 
they have been shamefully treated by the white people. 
One missionary here even sold them for £$ a head to 
a well-known beche de mer trader in Cooktown. This 
model missionary was afterwards, however, sent away 
and made to return the money. At the present time 
the native women have been kidnapped for these beche 
de mer and pearling boats, and the young boys, too, for 
servants. 
Mr. H., who has always been a friend to the natives, 
can do anything with them, though he came here in the 
“ good old cannibal days,” when they were not pleasant 
customers to meet. We paid the camp a visit this after- 
noon and watched them throwing their boomerangs. 
The natives are wonderfully dexterous in using them, 
and it is a pretty sight to see them skimming along the 
ground, rising and falling in a circuitous curved flight 
through the air, and finally swiftly coming back and 
falling at the thrower’s feet. At night they sometimes, 
during their corroborees, throw them with lighted 
torches fastened to one end. Their spears, nullahs, 
hatchets, and shields are all made of the same hard 
wood (partly hardened by the action of the fire). 
I once saw a fight in Western Australia among the 
natives. I stood with the non-combatants at a respect- 
ful distance. Their flesh, which heals with the greatest 
