A remarkable form of shield is in use on the north-east coast. The style of ornamentation differs from all others on the continent, and there is a boss in the centre. The people who carve this weapon use colors, also, in combinations that are not generally seen elsewhere.
The geometrical figures carved by the natives of Australia much resemble those of the Fijians. I have given some examples, and others might be given, showing almost line for line (though the patterns are complicated) an exact resemblance between the modes of ornamentation adopted on the north-east coast and by the natives of Levuka. But the Fijians use also forms that are unknown to the Australians.
On the other hand, the natives of New Zealand in all their forms of decoration greatly contrast those of Australia. There the broken loop-coil and peculiar shell-like patterns prevail, and the lines are not tangential, as those carved by the Australians almost invariably are.
The reader need not be reminded of the similarity that exists in all the forms adopted by the savages of Australia and those that are seen on the ancient urns dug out of the earth in Britain, and how often they are repeated in the architecture of the races from which we have derived civilization. Nearly as much will be taught by a careful study of all the forms of art-decoration used by the peoples of the past and those now in use by savages as perhaps by investigating the structure of the languages of those now living. It is a work that will undoubtedly be undertaken at some future time, and the results will be of the highest value to mankind. All the short steps which were taken in the march towards a higher state of existence cannot be measured, but some can be scanned by the light which existing practices throw on those of the past; and there is neither reason for doubt nor hesitation as regards the exceeding value of rigid research in a field that is almost untrodden. Savages, when they attempt ornamentation, appear to have the greatest difficulty in emancipating themselves from the control which geometrical figures exercise on the mind. They cannot, without an effort, make a large circle or a large curve. A snake drawn by an Australian is angular; and the neck of the emu is angular. Perhaps it is correct to say that wherever curved lines prevail in the decorations of a race there is an approach to a state, as regards art, somewhat higher than that of the savage. It may be that of barbarism; but still the use of the curve indicates a higher culture than that known to races who have exclusively geometrical patterns. It was only in the so-called bronze age in Scandinavia that the continuous loop-coil was so prominent in the decorations of the people of that part of Europe, and though such forms are used also by tribes that are unacqainted with the use of metals, such exceptions would perhaps be as instructive in unfolding the history of the past as the occurrence in Australia of animals and plants whose congeners are found in Europe in Secondary and Tertiary formations.
Without culture, without refinement, the Australian is an artist. He paints in caves, in places where he has access to caves; and, where there are none, he bends a sheet of bark, smokes the inner surface until it is blackened, and then
