350 
MODE OF PROCURING 
of trees, and had frequently seen indications of their 
having so obtained it, but I had never before seen 
the process actually gone through. Selecting a 
large healthy looking tree out of the gum-scrub, and 
growing in a hollow, or flat between two ridges, the 
native digs round at a few feet from the trunk, to 
And the lateral roots ; to one unaccustomed to the 
work, it is a difficult and laborious thing frequently 
to find these roots, but to the practised eye of the 
native, some slight inequality of the surface, or 
some other mark, points out to him their exact 
position at once, and he rarely digs in the wrong 
place. Upon breaking the end next to the tree, the 
root is lifted, and run out for twenty or thirty feet ; 
the bark is then peeled off, and the root broken into 
pieces, six or eight inches long, and these again, if 
thick, are split into thinner pieces ; they are then 
sucked, or shaken over a piece of bark, or stuck up 
together in the bark upon their ends, and water is 
slowly discharged from them ; if shaken, it comes 
out like a shower of very fine rain. The roots vary 
in diameter from one inch to three ; the best are 
those from one to two and a half inches, and of 
great length. The quantity of water contained in a 
good root, would probably fill two-thirds of a pint. 
I saw my own boys get one-third of a pint out in 
this way in about a quarter of an hour, and they 
were by no means adepts at the practice, having 
never been compelled to resort to it from necessity. 
Natives who, from infancy, have been accus- 
