accompaniment to the
wailing song they sang. Sometimes the women would cease beating the skin
bags to clap their hands and strike their sides, yelling the words of
the corroboree song, as the painted figures, like fiends and skeletons,
danced before the row of fires.

It was a terrifying sight to Dot. "Oh, Kangaroo!" she whispered, "they
are dreadful, horrid creatures."

"They're just Humans," replied the Kangaroo, indulgently.

"But white Humans are not like that," said Dot.

"All Humans are the same underneath, they all kill kangaroos," said the
Kangaroo. "Look there! they are playing at killing us in their dance."

Dot looked once more at the hideous figures as they left the fire and
began acting like actors. One of the Blackfellows had come from a little
bower of trees, and wore a few skins so arranged as to make him look as
much like a kangaroo as possible, whilst he worked a stick which he
pretended was a kangaroo's tail, and hopped about. The other painted
savages were creeping in and out of the bushes with their spears and
boomerangs as if they were hunting, and the dressed-up kangaroo made
believe not to see them, but stooped down, nibbling grass.

"What an idea of a kangaroo!" sniffed Dot's friend, "why, a real
kangaroo would have smelt or heard those Humans, and have bounded away
far out of sight by now."

"But it's all sham," said Dot; "the Black man couldn't be a real
kangaroo."

"Then it just shows how stupid Humans are to try and be one," said her
friend. "Humans think themselves so clever," she continued, "but just
see what bad kangaroos they make--such a simple thing to do, too! But
their legs bend the wrong way for jumping, and that stick isn't any good
for a tail, and it has to be worked with those big, clumsy arms. Just
see, too, how those skins fit! Why it's enough to make a kangaroo's
sides split with laughter to see such foolery!" Dot's friend peeped at
the Black's acting with the contempt to be expected of a real kangaroo,
who saw human beings pretending to be one of those noble animals. Dot
thought the Kangaroo had never looked so grand before. She was so tall,
so big, and yet so graceful: a really beautiful creature.

"Well, that's over!" remarked the Kangaroo, as one of the Blacks
pretended to spear the dressed-up Blackfellow, and all the rest began to
dance around, whilst the sham kangaroo made believe to be dead. "Well, I
forgive their killing such a silly creature! There wasn't a