[49] Martin’s New South Wales, p. 131.
[51] “Among the few specimens of art manufactured by the primitive inhabitants of these wilds, none come so near our own as the net, which, even in its quality, as well as in the mode of knotting, can scarcely be distinguished from those made in Europe.”—Mitchell’s Three Expeditions, vol. ii. p. 153.
[52] “Their only cutting implements are made of stone, sometimes of jasper, fastened between a cleft stick with a hard gum.”—Martin’s New South Wales, p. 147. “The use of the ‘mogo,’ or stone-hatchet, distinguishes the barbarous from the ‘civil’ black fellows, who all use iron tomahawks.”—Mitchell’s Three Expeditions in Eastern Australia, vol. i. p. 4.
[53] The kiley, or boomerang, is a thin curved missile, which can be thrown by a skilful hand so as to rise upon the air, and its crooked course may be, nevertheless, under control. It is about two feet four inches in length, and nine and a half ounces in weight. One side, the uppermost in throwing, is slightly convex, the lower side is flat. It is amazing to witness the feats a native will perform with this weapon, sometimes hurling it to astonishing heights and distances, from which, however, it returns to fall beside him; and sometimes allowing it to fall upon the earth, but so as to rebound, and leap, perhaps, over a tree, or strike some object behind.
[54] For instance, the natives on the river Bogan used the new tomahawks, given them by Major Mitchell, in getting wild honey—a food very commonly eaten in Australia—from the hollow branches of the trees. It seemed as though, in the proper season, they could find it almost everywhere. “To such inexpert clowns as they probably thought us,” continues the Major, “the honey and the bees were inaccessible, and indeed, invisible, save only when the natives cut the former out, and brought it to us in little sheets of bark; thus displaying a degree of ingenuity and skill in supplying wants, which we, with all our science, could not hope to attain.” They caught a bee, and stuck to it, with gum or resin, some light down of a swan or owl: thus laden, the bee would make for its nest in some lofty tree, and betray its store of sweets.—Mitchell’s Three Expeditions, vol. i. p. 173.
[55] See Evidence of J. Barnes, Esq., in minutes of evidence taken before the Select Committee on Transportation, Quest. 417-422, pp. 48, 49.
[56] This remark, which is here applied to the people on the south coast of New Holland, does not hold good of all the natives of that vast island. On the authority of the same able navigator, Flinders, we learn that, in the northern part of the country, about Torres Strait, some of the tribes are very skilful in managing their long canoes. See an interesting account of the natives of the Murray Islands, in Flinders’ Voyage, vol. ii. pp. 108-110.
[57] See p. 99.
[58] See Mitchell’s Three Expeditions, vol. i. p. 39.