With this long grass the Australian native occasionally makes a large cloak, which will cover the whole body. It is made by laying the fibres side by side, and lashing them together at regular intervals, much as the well-known New Zealand mantle is made from the phormium. Anxious to avoid trouble, the native only fastens together a sufficient quantity to make a covering for his body as low as the knees, the loose ends of the zostera being left as a kind of long fringe that edges the mantle all round, and really has a very graceful effect.
The [illustration No. 2], on the next page, shows one of those curious mantles, which was sketched while on the body of the wearer. As the manufacture of such a mantle involves much trouble, and the Australian native has the full savage hatred of labor, very few of these cloaks are to be seen. Indeed, nothing but a rather long inclement season will induce a native to take the trouble of making a garment which he will only use for a comparatively short period, and which is rather troublesome to carry about when not wanted.
We now come to the food of the natives. As has already been stated, they eat almost anything, but there are certain kinds of food which they prefer, and which will be specially mentioned.
As to vegetable food, there are several kinds of yams which the more civilized tribes cultivate—the nearest approach to labor of which they can be accused. It is almost exclusively on the islands that cultivation is found, and Mr. M’Gillivray states that on the mainland he never saw an attempt at clearing the ground for a garden. In the islands, however, the natives manage after a fashion to raise crops of yams.
When they want to clear a piece of ground, they strew the surface with branches, which are allowed to wither and dry; as soon as they are thoroughly dried, fire is set to them, and thus the space is easily cleared from vegetation. The ground is then pecked up with a stick sharpened at the point and hardened by fire; the yams are cut up and planted, and by the side of each hole a stick is thrust into the ground, so as to form a support for the plant when it grows up. The natives plant just before the rainy season. They never trouble themselves to build a fence round the simple garden, neither do they look after the growth of the crops, knowing that the rains which are sure to fall will bring their crops to perfection.
There are also multitudes of vegetable products on which the natives feed. One of them, which is largely used, is called by them “biyu.” It is made from the young and tender shoots of the mangrove tree. The sprouts, when three or four inches in length, are laid upon heated stones, and covered with bark, wet leaves, and sand. After being thoroughly stewed, they are beaten between two stones, and the pulp is scraped away from the fibres. It then forms a slimy gray paste, and, although it is largely eaten, the natives do not seem to like it, and only resort to it on a necessity. They contrive, however, to improve its flavor by adding large quantities of wild yams and other vegetable products.
Perhaps the most celebrated wild food of the Australians is the “nardoo,” which has become so familiar to the British reader since the important expedition of Burke and Wills. The nardoo is the produce of a cryptogamous plant which grows in large quantities, but is rather local. The fruit is about as large as a pea, and is cleaned for use by being rubbed in small wooden troughs. It is then pounded into a paste, and made into cakes, like oatmeal.
The nardoo plant is one of the ferns, and those of my readers who are skilled in botany will find it in the genus Marsilea. Like many of the ferns, the plant presents a strangely unfernlike aspect, consisting of upright and slender stems, about twelve inches high, each having on its tips a small quadruple frond, closely resembling a flower. The fruit, or “sporocarp” of the nardoo is the part that is eaten; and it is remarkable for its powers of absorbing water, and so increasing its size. Indeed, when the fruit is soaked in water, it will in the course of a single hour swell until it is two hundred times its former size.
