40 
HORN EXPEDITION—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
If elms in the report of the Anthropology* of the Elder Expedition, now passing 
through the press, speaks of a favourite pastime being that of imitating in the 
sand the tracks of birds and various other animals in which there appears to be a 
sort of competition in excellence of execution. I never saw this being done on the 
Horn Expedition, but I have heard of it, as a practice elsewhere. We often, 
however, had occasion to notice the remarkable accuracy with which it was 
determined by the nature of the tracks whether a lizard or other subterranean 
animal was in its hole or not. 
Lutheran Mission Station. 
Perhaps in this place it may not be without some interest, as throwing .some 
light upon the dispo.sitions and mental aptitudes of the native.s, if I record some 
observations made at the Mission Station, where I spent three or four days. 
For some years, since 1875 I believe, the German Lutheran Mis.sionary 
Society with the assistance of certain concessions from the South Australian 
Government has maintained an establishment at Hermannsburg, situated on the 
Einke River, immediately north of KrichaufF Range, in which the Missionary 
labours were combined with the working of a cattle and sheep station. 
At the time of our visit, however, the Mission work had not long ceased, 
owing, I understand, to some differences existing between the local and the home 
parent Society,! though the pastoral pursuits were still being carried on 
The names of the reverend gentlemen, Messrs. Schwartz, Kempe, Schulze, 
residents for many years, are well-known as contributors to the botany and 
ethnology of the Upper Finke basin. Indeed, beyond scattered references in the 
journals of explorers and two pamphlets by Mounted-Constable W. H. Willshire, 
the papers of the two last-named to the Transactions of the Royal Society of South 
Australia, may be regarded as almost the only available sources of information on 
the subject of the natives of this part of Central Australia. 
In the schoolroom and chapel at Hermannsburg, both showing, at the time 
of our visit, the effects of disuse and neglect and in the copy and exercise books 
of the former pupils, which were still to be found stowed away in various corners, 
there was aliundant evidence of the efforts that had been made to impart both 
religious and secular teaching. But it was unsatisfactory to observe the equally 
abundant signs of relapse from ways of grace after so short an interval. Nowhere 
* Trans. R. Soo. of S.A., vol. xvi. 
t The Mission work lias ayain been resumed—1895. 
