"Two or three times the man made a motion to throw it but did not. Finally, when he felt that he could strike the wind at the proper angle, he launched the weapon almost straight into the air; it went up a few yards, then turned and seemed to glide along a little way above the ground, gyrated on its axis, made a wide sweep and returned with a fluttering motion to the man's feet. The farthest point of the curve was about a hundred yards away. We are told that skilful throwers can sometimes project the boomerang nearly two hundred yards before it starts on its return.
"We offered him a sixpence for every time he would bring it back to his feet and make it fall in a circle two yards in diameter which we drew on the ground. In ten throws he brought it within the circle four times, and in the six misses it dropped only a short distance outside.
"He did not throw it the same way every time. Once he made it skim along the ground for at least fifty yards, then rise into the air fully one hundred feet, and after making a great curve it returned. Next he threw it so that it made at least half a dozen great spirals above him as it came down, and another time it passed around a tree in its course.
"Frank paced off fifty yards from the performer, and placed a shilling in the end of a split stick four feet long, which was then stuck in the ground just far enough to hold it up. We offered the shilling to the man if he would knock out the coin without disturbing the stick, and he did it, but the boomerang did not return.
"Our friend told us that the powers of the return-boomerang had been greatly exaggerated. The non-returning one is the real weapon, and is greatly to be feared in the hands of a skilful thrower. It has been known to hit a man behind a tree or a rock, where he was quite safe from bullet, spear, or arrow; and if an expert in its use comes within throwing distance of a kangaroo or an emu, the creature's fate is sealed.
"He further said he had never known a white man to become expert in the use of the boomerang, though many had practised with it for years.
"We asked if the natives knew how long ago and by whom the boomerang was invented. He shook his head and said no one could give any account of it; but as all the tribes throughout the country are familiar with it, it must be of very ancient date. He said there was a theory that the natives derived the invention from observing the peculiar shape and turn of the leaf of the white gum-tree. As the leaves fall to the ground they gyrate, very much as does the boomerang, and if one of the leaves is thrown straight forward, it gyrates and comes back.
"Such an origin is certainly quite possible. Children might be playing with such leaves, and to please them a man might make a large leaf of wood, and from this the boomerang may have been developed. Quien sabe?
"And with this query of 'Who can tell?' we will drop the boomerang, or leave it in the hands of the aboriginals of Australia, who alone of all the people in the world know how to handle it."