HORN EXPEDITION-ANTHROPOLOGY. 
7 
aspect and physique of nearly all the natives met with indicated, in fact, good 
nutrition. Of fair, and, in many instances, of superior stature, their muscular 
systems were not ill developed, and not infrequently really tine figures, both of men 
and women, might be observed. In the women, however, grace of form is very 
early lost, and some of the old females were veritable hags. Occasionally a 
tendency to adiposity, rare amongst the race, was noticeable. 
It must be remembered, however, that since the advent of the settler 
there has been a tendency of the natives to congregate in the neighbourhood of 
the pastoral stations, where their natural food supply is materially, if inter¬ 
mittently, augmented by the refuse of the slaughter-yard, or even by gifts 
of entire beasts. While at Tempe Downs I was witness of the sequence of such a 
donation which is there of frequent occurrence, but it formed an uninviting 
spectacle which need not be described here. Everything possible is eaten, even to 
the skin, intestines and marrow, after more or less baking in the ashes. 
In the more outlying stations, particularly in those largely consisting of hilly 
country, the natives have for some time and to his great loss, liberally helped them¬ 
selves to the squatter’s herd. Mr. R. F. Thornton, the owner of Tempe Downs, 
informed me that, in the neighbourhood of Gill’s Range, they were for some time 
killing cattle at the rate of 100 a month, a loss which no station could long endure. 
The modus operaridi is for one party of natives to drive a small detachment of the herd 
into the bed of one of the deeply-cut rocky gorges which are numerous in the ranges, 
and to which the cattle may be in the habit of repairing for water in the springs 
or rock-holes. Another party lies in wait higher up the gorge or on the rocks 
above and either spears the cattle or disables them by rolling down rocks. They 
cut up the beasts in portions, cany them off to conveniently retired and often very 
inaccessible spots, eat to repletion and then move on again next day. What with 
the rapidity of their movements and the natural difficulties of a very rocky and 
hilly region, these raiding parties are very difficult to catch, and when they are 
caught it is only by following them up incessantly by the aid of black trackers and 
by giving them no rest. It is not the actual destruction of stock alone which consti¬ 
tutes the damage done, but the terrorising influence of these repeated assaults on 
the herd is so great that, on some of the best portions of the Tempe Downs Run, 
no stock could be kept, the mere scent of a black being sufficient to produce a 
panic. With such continued harrying of the herd the beasts soon fall off in 
condition and become unlit for market. So great indeed was the harm that 
was being done that a police camp, with two experienced mounted troopers and a 
band of black trackers, was established at Illamurta on the Ilpilla Creek, the result 
