weapons and sat down. He was relieved by Major Mitchell, and showed great fortitude. He was quite a wild black.
Of their intelligence Major Mitchell gives an example:—"An opossum in a tree had baffled all the endeavours of himself (a friend of the king's) and some young men to get at it, when they 'cooyed' for the king. He came, climbed the tree in an instant, and after a cursory examination, dropped some small sticks down the hollow of the trunk, and listening, pointed, as by instinct, to a part of the trunk, much lower down, where, by making a small incision, the others immediately got the animal out."
Their modes of expressing defiance and contempt are well described by the same eminent explorer. One native and a boy refused to move so as to allow the sheep to be driven back, and when the shepherd held out a green bough to them, they also each took a bough, spat upon it, and thrust it into the fire. On Major Mitchell advancing to the native with a green bough in his hand, the black was not daunted; he shook a twig at him in quite a new style, waving it over his head, and moving it in such a manner as to indicate that they should go back. The black and the boy then threw up dust at them in a clever way with their toes. The man's expressions of hostility and defiance were unmistakable, and they could not conciliate him. He brought up his tribe subsequently, and Major Mitchell gives a vivid picture of the strange antics of these untamed natives. They approached the party of white men, holding in their hands boughs, but using them apparently as if they wished the party to go away. They waved the branches defiantly and spat at the men. They afterwards sang a war-song, jumping, shouting, spitting, and throwing up dust. They retired, dancing in a circle, and jumping, crouching, and springing, spear in hand. The same tribe was seen again the next day. With them was an old man of an odd and striking appearance, supposed to be a coradje or priest. They commenced a processional chant, slowly waving their green boughs, and approaching the forge of the blacksmith. None except the old man and several other ancients wore any kind of dress, and the dress itself consisted of a small cloak of skins fastened over the left shoulder. As they chanted their mournful hymn, the old man occasionally turned his back towards Major Mitchell and his party, touched his eyebrows, nose, and breast as if crossing himself, then lifted his arm towards the sky, and then laid his hand on his breast, all the time chanting with an air of remarkable solemnity. They proved to be thievish, endeavouring to steal all they could from the forge; and when the blacksmith gave one a push, the thief commenced again the chanting and spitting, throwing dust in the air, and making a motion as if he would use his spear. Major Mitchell says that he never saw such unfavorable specimens of the natives as these—"implacably hostile, shamelessly dishonest." The more they saw of the invaders' superior weapons, the more they showed their hatred and tokens of defiance.[1]
Collins's statements respecting the natives are accurate. "They are," he remarks in one part of his work, "revengeful, jealous, courageous, and cunning. Their stealing on each other in the night for the purpose of murder must not be imputed to them as a want of bravery, but as the effect of the diabolical spirit
- ↑ Interior of Eastern Australia, vol. I. and II.
