Softly, as a sister pinches her brother,
But I am safe, safe beyond danger
Grinning, grinning, grinning, are my teeth.”
The men now begin to discuss the matter in hand in a low voice, the old patriarch still lying upon the ground meanwhile; and a strange, wild group they form in the firelight, as they squat round in various attitudes. The women and boys now retire to the hut-crowned hill above the river flat. The heavenly peacefulness of the night scene, with the star-spangled sheet of water lying silent in its dark fringe of verdure; the purple dome above, pierced with the golden eyes of native deities; and the tremulous cries of various night-prowling birds and beasts, softened and sweetened by distance,—all seems in curious contrast to the anxious faces of the little community.
A woman wearing the Bilpa forehead ornament of kangaroo teeth is sitting at the door of one of the gunyahs on the hill, with a child in her arms. The hut, which is exactly like all the others in the group,—and for the matter of that all within two or three hundred miles,—is built of sticks, which have been stuck into the ground at the radius of a common centre, and then bent over so as to form an egg-shaped cage, which is substantially thatched on top and sides with herbage and mud. The door, on opening, faces the least windy quarter, namely, the north. Reclining against the portal is the satin-skinned native mother, who, dark as night, has the beautiful eyes, teeth, and hair of her race. She is gazing at the fat little man-animal on her lap by the light of an anti-mosquito fire-stick which she gracefully holds above her, and the group would form as beautiful a model as any artist could wish for to illustrate that affectionate adoration for their offspring which is the pleasing attribute of most mothers, civilized or uncivilized, all over the world. A slenderly formed boy, of about eight years of age, kneels by her side, amusing his baby brother with a toy boomerang that he has that day won as a prize, in the throwing game of Wuæ Whuuitch , with his fellows. The woman is singing the chorus of the chant with which the villagers have that day welcomed the returning ochre trader, her husband:—
“Mulka-a-a-a-wora-a-a,
Yoong-arra-a-a Oondoo-o-o
Ya Pillie-e-e-e Mulka-a-a-a
Angienie,
Kooriekirra-a-a ya-a-aya.”