he tribe to
pass that fearful boundary.

Their most curious superstition, however, remains to be recorded; it is
the opinion they confidently entertain, and which seems universally
diffused among them, that the white people are their former fellow
countrymen, who in such altered guise revisit the world after death.
Miago assured me that this was the current opinion, and my own personal
observation subsequently confirmed his statement. At Perth, one of the
settlers, from his presumed likeness to a defunct member of the tribe of
the Murray River, was visited by his supposed kindred twice every year,
though in so doing they passed through sixty miles of what was not
unfrequently an enemy's country.

Their religious opinions, so far as I have been able to obtain any
information on the subject, are exceedingly vague and indefinite. That
they do not regard the grave as man's final resting place, may, however,
be fairly concluded, from the superstition I have just alluded to, and
that they believe in invisible and superior powers--objects of dread and
fear, rather than veneration or love--has been testified in Captain
Grey's most interesting chapter upon Native Customs, and confirmed by my
own experience.

THE EVIL SPIRIT.

I used sometimes to question Miago upon this point, and from him I
learned their belief in the existence of an evil spirit, haunting dark
caverns, wells, and places of mystery and gloom, and called Jinga. I
heard from a settler that upon one occasion, a native travelling with
him, refused to go to the well at night from fear of this malevolent
being; supposed to keep an especial guardianship over fresh water, and to
be most terrible and most potent in the hours of darkness. Miago had
never seen this object of his fears, but upon the authority of the elders
of his tribe, he described its visible presence as that of a huge
many-folded serpent; and in the night, when the tall forest trees moaned
and creaked in the fitful wind, he would shrink terrified by the solemn
and mysterious sounds, which then do predispose the mind to superstitious
fears, and tell how, at such a time, his countrymen kindle a fire to
avert the actual presence of the evil spirit, and wait around
it--chanting their uncouth and rhythmical incantations--with fear and
trembling, for the coming dawn.

I have preserved these anecdotes here, because I can vouch for their
authenticity, and though individually unimportant, they may serve to