dictive, improvident and thievish; and they seem
almost devoid of gallantry in the treatment of their women, wooing
their wives with blows, and often inflicting death upon women and
children for the slightest offences. Yet they have some ideas of a
Supreme Being and a future state, they practice a sort of religious
worship, and they bury or burn their dead. They call their chiefs
_be-a-na_, or "father," but unless compelled by fear to obedience they
treat them with little respect or affection. Their language has a
musical sound, but the vocabulary is scanty; and thus far the origin
of these people and their language remains a matter of doubt, though
in many particulars they bear a decided resemblance to the negroes of
Guinea. In regard to dress their habits are certainly primitive. A
single ratskin often forms the entire wardrobe of a native chief, and
a tomahawk with a brace of spears pointed with iron-wood or flint his
adornments. Opossum-skins tied together form a sort of cloak used as a
protection against the cold, but if on the chase the wearer finds his
upper garment oppressively warm, he tosses it away, and trusts to
finding or stealing another when he needs it. Their dwellings are
wretched little huts, or rather sheds, composed of bark or dried
leaves, and so low-pitched that one must crawl on his knees to enter
them. They are ill-ventilated and filthy in the extreme, utterly
devoid of furniture and household implements, and without any means of
securing either privacy or warmth--places where we should deem it
impossible to dwell content. Yet the native Australian seems always
merry, and he would not exchange his filthy hovel for the palace of a
prince. Unpretending as that of his subjects was the royal abode of
the venerable King Tatambo, an old man, whom the count de Beauvoir
describes as having a "skin black and shiny as liquorice, with
snow-white hair and beard," his only garment being a fur cloak that
was cast aside during the dance at which the count was present. He
gives, in connection with the king's portrait, that of "the youngest
and most beautiful of His Majesty's daughters," which may serve as a
type of the female beauty of Australia.

[Illustration: NEGRO WAR-DANCE, OR CORROBORI.]

The Australians are extremely fond of dancing, especially their
_corrobori_ or war-dance, performed always with bodies perfectly nude,
while they brandish a spear in one hand and a flaming brand in the
other. The night