I have seen
elsewhere. The absence of one or more of the upper incisors was not
observed here, nor had circumcision or any similar rite been practised,
as is the case in some parts of the continent. Among these undoubted
Australians were, as already mentioned, two or three Papuans. They
differed in appearance from the others in having the skin of a much
lighter colour--yellowish brown instead of nearly black--the hair on the
body woolly and growing in scattered tufts, and that of the head also
woolly and twisted into long strands like those of a mop. On the right
shoulder, and occasionally the left also, they had a large complicated,
oval scar, only slightly prominent, and very neatly made.

The custom of smoking, so general throughout Torres Strait, has been
introduced at Cape York. Those most addicted to it were the Papuans
above-mentioned, but many of the Australians joined them, and were
equally clamorous for tobacco. Still it was singular to notice that
although choka (tobacco) was in great demand, biscuit, which they had
corrupted to bishikar, was much more prized. Their mode of smoking having
elsewhere* been described, I need not allude to it further than that the
pipe, which is a piece of bamboo as thick as the arm and two or three
feet long, is first filled with tobacco-smoke, and then handed round the
company seated on the ground in a ring--each takes a long inhalation, and
passes the pipe to his neighbour, slowly allowing the smoke to exhale. On
several occasions at Cape York I have seen a native so affected by a
single inhalation, as to be rendered nearly senseless, with the
perspiration bursting out at every pore, and require a draught of water
to restore him; and, although myself a smoker, yet on the only occasion
when I tried this mode of using tobacco, the sensations of nausea and
faintness were produced.

(*Footnote. Jukes' Voyage of the Fly Volume 1 page 165.)

These people appeared to repose the most perfect confidence in us--they
repeatedly visited the ship in their own canoes or the watering-boats,
and were always well treated; nor did any circumstance occur during our
intimacy to give either party cause of complaint. We saw few weapons
among them. The islanders had their bows and arrows, and the others their
spears and throwing-sticks. As the weather was fine, at least as regarded
the absence of rain, no huts of any kind were constructed; at night the
natives slept round their fires without any c