A few days before our departure some of the scientific staff had further opportunity of communicating with the "blacks." It was important to extend our collection of craniological specimens for that branch of study, by comparing the various races of men with each other, so as to enlarge our knowledge of the physiological peculiarities of either sex and every race; and as we had been told that numbers of skulls could be procured among the Gunyahs, or sandstone cavities of Cook-river Bay, which had been a favourite burial-place of the aborigines, we made an excursion thither, still accompanied by our staunch friend, Mr. Hill.
Our light vehicle rattled merrily through the suburbs of New Town, a sort of suburb of Sydney, thence over the Cook-river Dam, 1000 feet wide by 200 feet in length, to Coggera Cove, where several of the aborigines had pitched a temporary camp. These were two Mestiza women with their children, and Johnny, the last of the Sydney blacks, who might be about 40, and was a cripple in consequence of an injury sustained in childhood. In 1836 there were 58 still alive; now Johnny is the last remaining survivor!
We set off from Coggera Cove in a small, but safe, and well-built boat, rowed by Johnny and some white colonists, bound for Cool-river Bay, but our search in the sandstone caverns was unfortunately fruitless. Johnny then conducted us to a spot where Tom Weiry, one of the last of the chiefs, who lived at the mouth of Cool River, and died about twelve years previous, had been buried. Tom Weiry, or Tom Ugly,
as the English named him, was a very athletic man, whose skeleton was a real prize for the purposes of comparative anatomy. Close to the spot where, according to Johnny, the last remains of the Australian chief reposed, were large quantities of empty oyster-shells, indicating that the place in question had once been a favourite resort of the "blacks," attracted thither by the prolific yield of this place in those shell-fish, one of their most highly appreciated articles of food. At various spots traces of fires were visible. The aborigines of the coast usually bury their dead clothed in the woollen blanket they wore in life, with the heads seaward, and near the coast, with but a few feet of earth over them. Unfortunately we had our pains for our reward, although Johnny repeatedly assured us he had himself, in picking up shell-fish, on that very spot seen projecting from the sand human bones, that frightened the superstitious fellow from prosecuting his search in that direction. Indeed, Johnny was positive some other exploring naturalist had been there and walked off with our contemplated anthropological prize.
We returned, our object unachieved, to our boat, and so back to Coggera Cove, where we found tea and chocolate prepared in the renowned "black pot," that figures so much in bush life, off which we made an excellent repast. With true kindliness Mr. Hill shared what we had brought with us with the aborigines, who, on their part, showed themselves very obliging and attentive.
A second excursion, still in Mr. Hill's company, was made
after craniological specimens to Long Bay, twelve miles distant, among whose thickets a few natives had been residing for some weeks. The road thither passed through gum tree forests, varied by wide grass plains covered with the many-blossomed Metrosidero, with its long deep red stamens, and brilliant Melaleuca, its twigs also nearly covered with white flowers, among which rose the tapering flower-stem, ten or twelve feet high, of the Xanthorrhea, something like reed-mace, surrounded by flights of humming-birds, which were imbibing its delicious nectar with their long bills. Great quantities of little birds were swarming about the brushwood and rushes, occasionally coming quite trustfully so close to us that we could have caught them with a butterfly net. We had been riding perhaps an hour or two when Mr. Hill suddenly began to call in the native manner. Those forthwith summoned by this quite unique sound replied from the thicket, as if recognizing the approach of a friend, and in a minute or two more we found ourselves in the midst of a number of aborigines of both sexes, mostly naked, or with a coarse woollen cloth around them, lying at full length on the ground in listless ease. Close by was a fire, over which was suspended a kettle filled with water. A couple of mangy hounds covered with sores were basking in the sun, heedless of the footfall of our horses, lying as indifferent as their masters till we had dismounted and seen our beasts attended to.
It is extraordinary to see how few necessaries these people seem to have, and how little ambition they have to better
themselves, so long as they can indulge their vagabondizing propensities. There is assuredly no nation on earth that so aptly illustrates Goldsmith's words,
"Man wants but little here below,"