om head to foot with grease and
red-ochre, and without weapons. The Nar-wij-jerook tribe was now seen
approaching. The men were in a body, armed and painted, and the women and
children accompanying them a little on one side. They occasionally
halted, and entered into consultation, and then, slackening their pace,
gradually advanced until within a hundred yards of the Moorunde tribe.
Here the men came to a full stop, whilst several of the women singled out
from the rest, and marched into the space between the two parties, having
their heads coated over with lime, and raising a loud and melancholy
wail, until they came to a spot about equi-distant from both, when they
threw down their cloaks with violence, and the bags which they carried on
their backs, and which contained all their worldly effects. The bags were
then opened, and pieces of glass and shells taken out, with which they
lacerated their thighs, backs, and breasts, in a most frightful manner,
whilst the blood kept pouring out of the wounds in streams; and in this
plight, continuing their wild and piercing lamentations, they moved up
towards the Moorunde tribe, who sat silently and immoveably in the place
at first occupied. One of the women then went up to a strange native, who
was on a visit to the Moorunde tribe and who stood neutral in the affair
of the meeting, and by violent language and frantic gesticulations
endeavoured to incite him to revenge the death of some relation or
friend. But he could not be induced to lift his spear against the people
amongst whom he was sojourning. After some time had been spent in
mourning, the women took up their bundles again, and retiring, placed
themselves in the rear of their own party. An elderly man then advanced,
and after a short colloquy with the seated tribe, went back, and beckoned
his own people to come forward, which they did slowly and in good order,
exhibiting in front three uplifted spears, to which were attached the
little nets left with them by the envoys of the opposite tribe, and which
were the emblems of the duty they had come to perform, after the ordinary
expiations had been accomplished.

In advancing, the Nar-wij-jerooks again commenced the death wail, and one
of the men, who had probably sustained the greatest loss since the tribes
had last met, occasionally in alternations of anger and sorrow addressed
his own people. When near the Moorunde tribe a few words were addressed
to them, and they at once