hite man snapped at his own ear; and who, giving the unfortunate black
one shotted, encouraged him to perform the same manoeuvre; he was thus
murdered by his own hands. The natives were variable, from ignorance and
distrust; probably from mental puerility: thus, their war whoop and
defiance were soon succeeded by shouts of laughter.

_Religious Ideas._--Their religious ideas were exceedingly meagre and
uncertain. To Mr. Horton's enquiries, in 1821, they answered, "don't
know," with broad grins: he was probably not understood. They appear to
have had no religious rites, and few congenial ideas: they dreaded
darkness, and feared to wander from their fires: they recognised a
malignant spirit, and attributed strong emotions to the devil. The feats
imputed to his agency, do not much differ from the sensations of
night-mare: they believed him to be _white_--a notion supported by very
substantial reasons, and suggested by their national experience: this
idea must have been modern. They ascribed extraordinary convulsions to
this malignant power, and to his influence they traced madness. Lord
Monboddo might have contrived their account of the creation: they were
formed with tails, and without knee-joints, by a benevolent being:
another descended from heaven, and compassionating the sufferers, cut
off the tail; and with grease softened the knees.

As to a future state, they expected to re-appear on an island in the
Straits, and "to jump up white men." They anticipated in another life
the full enjoyment of what they coveted in this. These scraps of
theology, when not clearly European, are of doubtful origin: nothing
seems certain, except that they dreaded mischief, from demons of
darkness. Though they had no idols, they possessed some notions of
statuary: it was sufficiently rude. They selected stones, about ten
inches high, to represent absent friends; one of greater dimensions than
common, Backhouse observed that they called Mother Brown.

Persons of sanguine minds are apt to attribute to them religious ideas,
which they never possessed in their original state. The notion of a
spirit, however, exists on the continent: in this, the Tasmanian black
participated. Their ideas were extremely indefinite, and will not
refute, or much support the belief, that the recognition of a Divinity
is an universal tradition.

_The Sick._--They suffered from several diseases, which were often
fatal. Rheumatism and inflammations were cured by in