[59] Flinders’ Voyage, vol. i. Introd. pp. 99, 100.
[60] “The natives do not allow that there is such a thing as a death from natural causes; they believe that were it not for murderers, or the malignity of sorcerers, they might live for ever.”—Grey’s Travels in Western Australia, vol. ii. p. 238.
[61] See Deut. xiv. 1, where the very spot is mentioned,—“between the eyes,”—which is always torn and scratched by the Australian female mourners.
[62] This disease made dreadful ravages among the natives about the same time as the colony in New South Wales was settled. “The recollection of this scourge will long survive in the traditionary songs of these simple people. The consternation which it excited is yet as fresh in their minds, as if it had been an occurrence of but yesterday, although the generation that witnessed its horrors has almost passed away. The moment one of them was seized with it, was the signal for abandoning him to his fate. Brothers deserted their brothers, husbands their wives, wives their husbands, children their parents, and parents their children; and in some of the caves of the coast, heaps of decayed bones still indicate the spots where these ignorant and helpless children of nature were left to expire, not so much, probably, from the virulence of the disease itself, as from the want of sustenance.”—Wentworth’s Australia, vol. i. p. 311. Third edition. See also Collins’ New South Wales, p. 383.
[63] See, however, a more pleasing picture of a native burying-place, in Mitchell’s Three Expeditions, vol. i. p. 321.
[64] Martin’s New South Wales, p. 143.
[65] See p. 114.
[66] “In many places a log of wood, or a wide slip of bark, tied at either end, and stuffed with clay, is the only mode invented for crossing a river or arm of the sea, while in other parts a large tree, roughly hollowed by fire, forms the canoe.”—M. Martin’s New South Wales, p. 147.
[67] Flinders’ Voyage, vol. ii. p. 138.
[68] See a most remarkable instance of this in M. Martin’s New South Wales, pp. 156-158.