The stranding of a whale is a great event in an Australian’s life, for here without any trouble on his part the bountiful sea presents him with a whole mountain of flesh. It is impossible for civilised man to enter into the feelings of the savage under these circumstances, for he has never been similarly situated, he never has had such a prodigal repast placed at once before him. On finding a whale cast ashore upon his property, the native ‘lord of the manor,’ seeing the impossibility of his own family consuming this enormous mass of food, whatever zeal it may bring to the task, feels his breast glow with unwonted hospitality, and anxious to see his friends about him, falls to work with his wives, and kindles large fires to give notice of the joyful event. This duty being performed, he rubs himself all over with the blubber, then anoints his favourite wives, and thus prepared, begins cutting his way through the blubber into the flesh, the grain of which is about as firm as a goose-quill. By-and-by other natives come gaily trooping in from all quarters; by night they dance and sing, by day they eat and sleep, and continue gormandising and merry-making until they at last fairly eat their way into the whale. Thus they remain by the carcase for many days, rubbed from head to foot with stinking blubber, gorged to repletion with putrid meat, out of temper from indigestion, and therefore constantly quarrelling, suffering from a cutaneous disorder by high feeding, and presenting altogether a most disgusting spectacle. A native girl stepping out of the carcase of a putrid whale is indeed a sight very different from that of a sea-born Venus emerging from her shell. When they at last quit their feast, they carry off as much as they can stagger under, to eat upon the way, and to take as a rare treat to their distant friends.
Though in many respects so utterly barbarous, the Australians are not guilty of the cannibalism so prevalent among the islanders of the Papuan race and in many parts of the Indian Archipelago, where, by a strange anomaly, we find it practised by nations standing much higher in the scale of civilisation.
The inventions of the throwing-stick for darting the spear, and of the well-known weapon called the boomerang; the sound policy of many of their laws and regulations, and the fact that Australian children educated in England have shown the same aptitude in learning as white children of the same age, sufficiently prove that these savages are by no means deficient in intelligence.
As to their moral qualities, their apparent honesty results in a great measure from there being few European articles for which they have any use; articles of food, or a knife, or a hatchet are by no means safe where they can get at them. Their behaviour to their women is often very bad; they beat and even spear them on the most trifling occasions. Different tribes vary in the most extraordinary way in their friendliness or hostility to strangers. They appear to be very capricious, and always act on the whim or the impulse of the moment, so that the same people, who to-day may be kind assistants in the hour of need, will to-morrow be guilty of the grossest acts of treachery.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE SLOTH.
Miserable Aspect of the Sloth—His Beautiful Organisation for his Peculiar Mode of Life—His Rapid Movements in the Trees—His Means of Defence—His Tenacity of Life—Fable about the Sloth refuted—The Ai—The Unau—The Mylodon Robustus.
‘The piteous aspect, the sorrowful gestures, the lamentable cry of the Sloth, all combine to excite commiseration. While other animals assemble in herds, or roam in pairs through the boundless forest, the sloth leads a lonely life in those immeasurable solitudes, where the slowness of his movements exposes him to every attack. Harmless and frugal, like a pious anchorite, a few coarse leaves are all he asks for his support. On comparing him with other animals, you would say that his deformed organisation was a strange mixture of deficiency and superabundance. He has no cutting teeth, and though possessed of four stomachs, he still wants the long intestines of ruminating animals. His feet are without soles, nor can he move his toes separately. His hair is coarse and wiry, and its dull colour reminds one of grass withered by the blasts of surly winter. His legs appear deformed by the manner in which they are attached to the body, and his claws seem disproportionably long. Surely a creature so wretched and ill-formed stands last on the list of all the four-footed animals, and may justly accuse Nature of step-motherly neglect!’
THE SLOTH.