of Van Diemen's Land . 
419 
occurred. Each tribe occupied certain tracts of couutry, but they 
were constantly invading and at war with each other. 
In personal quarrels each party fights with a waddy, standing 
each other’s blow on the head, without defending it. If an of¬ 
fence be committed against the tribe, the delinquent has to stand 
whilst a certain number of spears are, at the same time, thrown 
at him : these, from the unerring aim which they are thrown, he 
can seldom altogether avoid; although, from the quickness of 
his sight, he will frequently escape unhurt: he moves not from 
his place, avoiding the spears merely by the contortions of his 
body. Another mode of punishment is to place the offender upon 
a low branch of a tree, point at and jeer him.' 
When they move from place to place they carry fire with them : 
when they had it not, I have been informed that they obtained it 
by rubbing round rapidly in their hands a piece of hard pointed 
stick, the pointed end inserted into a notch in another piece of 
dry wood. 
The natives here, unlike those of the continent, use neither the 
boomerang, club, nor throwing stick, &c. 
So much of the island was impracticable for their purposes, on 
account of dense scrubs that would not burn, that in all proba¬ 
bility the number of inhabitants was extremely limited at any 
time. Now, the whole number of the aborigines of Van Diemen’s 
Land amounts to only about fifty, who are settled upon Flinders’ 
Island in Bass’s Strait, where they have been treated with uniform 
kindness; nevertheless, the births have been very few, and the 
deaths numerous. This may have been in a great measure owing 
to their change of living and food, but much more so to their 
banishment from the main land of Van Diemen’s Land, which is 
visible from Flinders’ Island; and the natives have often pointed 
it out to me with expressions of the deepest sorrow depicted on 
their countenances. The same thing has occurred on board the 
vessel when passing some part of the coast with which they were 
acquainted. 
The woman of the late “ James Munro,” the sealer, was a 
native of some part of the coast of New Holland, opposite to Van 
