heir succeeds, and the girl goes with the other possessions of the deceased. Contrary to received opinions, it is shown in this work that the children of the native women are often numerous, some having as many as thirteen, and twins are not rare. It is also proved that the Australians are really human beings, and not creatures of another species, as so many have represented them in their works. Numerous cases are mentioned which fairly dispose of the theory so long maintained that they are—regarding man merely as an animal—different from Europeans.
The customs of the natives of Australia are so like, in many respects, those of other existing savage or barbarous races and those of the people of ancient times, that one feels more and more the necessity of a classification, in which would appear every known custom and the place where it is practised, exactly after the manner that the geologist elaborates his system of the classification of rocks.
In Australia, the mother-in-law may not look upon her son-in-law, and the son-in-law hides himself if his path be crossed by his mother-in-law. The Kaffir places his shield before his eyes and shuns the mother of his wife, and the same strange fear of meeting or seeing a mother-in-law has been observed in South America and amongst savages in other parts of the globe. What may have given rise to this rule can only be guessed, but that it is recognised and obeyed under circumstances which must necessarily prove most embarrassing is beyond doubt.
Marriages between black men and white women are, as may be supposed, not common. Invaders invariably regard the women of the country invaded more or less favorably, and they are chosen as wives or concubines; but the men who lose their country lose also their influence, and it is not often that they can obtain wives from the stronger race. But sometimes, under favorable conditions, an Australian black marries a white woman. Nothing is known to the writer of the results of such unions.
The restrictions on marriage, as they exist in Australia, certainly invite enquiry; and a complete knowledge of these, and the exact meaning of such native words as are usually but not accurately translated as mother, father, sister, brother, step-mother, step-father, aunt, uncle, &c., would be of the highest value, and enable the ethnologist to unravel many intricate and complex lines in relationships amongst savages. A man knows that his mother's sister is not his mother, and that his father's brother is not his father; the exact relationship is known to him; and it is highly probable that, in addition to the nomenclature which points to a time when the intercourse between the sexes was different from what it is now, there are also terms which express correctly the relationship that exists. If such terms do not exist, it is plain that the growth of the language has not kept pace with the requirements of their condition as it advanced from a lower to a higher state. It is not disputed that the terms as translated very nearly express the meanings commonly assigned to them, nor that the enquiries into this branch of ethnology are of the greatest importance, nor is it doubted that the results will ultimately far more than repay the labors that have been bestowed on such investigations; but when a son tells you that
