n the ridges where their
bodies were put. Their anguished cries as the stones and earth fell on
them are still to be heard echoing through the scrub there; and
sometimes it is said one, keener sighted than his fellows, sees their
spirit forms flitting through the Budtha bushes, and hears again their
tragic cries, as they disappear once more into the fathomless fissure.

There is a tradition--common, I believe, to many black tribes, even
outside Australia--that, long before the coming of the white people
into this country, two beautiful white girls lived with the blacks.
They had long hair to their waists. They were called Bungebah, and were
killed as devils by an alien tribe somewhere between Noorahwahgean and
Gooroolay. Where their blood was spilled two red-leaved trees have
grown, and that place is still haunted by their spirits.

Amid the Cookeran Lake still wanders the woman who arrived late at the
big Boorah, having lost her children one by one on the track, arriving
at last with only her dead baby in the net at her back. As she died she
cursed the tribes who had deserted her, and turned them into trees.
Some of the blacks were in groups a little way off; those, too, she
cursed, and they were changed into forests of Belah, which look dark
and funereal as you drive through them; and the murmuring sound, as the
wind wails through their tops, has a very sad sound. She wanders
through these forests and round the lake, the dead baby still in the
goolay on her back, and sometimes her voice is heard mingling with the
voices of the forest; and as the shadows fall, she may be seen flitting
past, they say.

Noorahgogo is a very handsome bronze and peacock-blue beetle, said to
embody a spirit which always answers the cry of a Noongahburrah in the
bush. The bright orange-red fungi on the fallen trees are devils'
bread, and should a child touch any he will be spirited away.

Very mournful are the bush nights if you happen to be alone on your
verandah. Away on the flat sound the cries of curlews; past flies a
night heron; then the discordant voice of a plover is heard. In all
these birds are embodied the spirits of men of the past; each has its
legend.

Perhaps some passing swans will cry 'Biboh, biboh,' reminding in vain
the camp wizards that they too were once men, and long to be again.
Poor enchanted swans! to whose enchantment we owe the lovely flannel
flowers of New South Wales, and the red epacris bells.

But in spi