of Van Diemen*s Land . 
413 
scarified on the thighs, shoulders, and muscles of the breast, with 
a sharp flint or glass. When I witnessed the operation, a female 
was the operator, and such I believe is always the case. The 
subject was a young man named “ Penderoine,” brother to the 
celebrated western chiei, “ Weymerrickethe instrument was 
a piece of broken bottle, and although the fat of his shoulder 
literally rose and turned back like a crimped fish, he was during 
the whole operation in the highest glee, laughing, and continually 
interrupting his operatrix by picking up chips to fling at our 
party, in play. These scarifications are intended as ornaments. 
With respect to the general nature of their food, that depends 
in a great measure on their locality. The western portion of the 
island is more mountainous, wet, and thickly wooded than the 
rest; kangaroos are more difficult to obtain, and the natives conse¬ 
quently live more on shell-fish than on the eastern coast; these arc 
principally the haliotis and crayfish, which they obtain by diving, 
at which they are extremely expert, the women being generally, if 
not at all times, the divers. They take down with them a small 
grass basket, slung round their waist, into which they put their 
shell-fish. The tribes in the interior subsist upon kangaroos, 
wallaby, and opossums; more particularly the latter, as being- 
most easily obtained. The natives, especially the women, get 
them by climbing trees; their senses of seeing and hearing are 
particularly acute, and a glance will suffice to tell them when 
there is an opossum in the tree. They always carried with 
them a small rope, made of kangaroo sinews, and their mode of 
climbing the trees was as follows:—They first, as high as they 
could conveniently reach, cut a notch with a sharp stone in the 
side of the tree; then throwing the bight of the rope up, and 
leaning back, it held against the tree by their weight, until with 
its assistance the climber got his right great toe into the notch 
that had been cut; then grasping the tree with his left arm, the 
rope by a sudden jerk is thrown higher up the tree, a fresh notch 
is cut for the left toe, and so the climber proceeds. If branches 
interfere, they are an hindrance to the climber, but he then throws 
the end of the rope over it, and, holding both ends, raises him¬ 
self up. 
