uffer less from
weakness and disease than the aged amongst us usually endure. The old,
too, are privileged to eat certain kinds of meat forbidden to the young.
Thus Piper, a native, who accompanied Major Mitchell, would not eat the
flesh of emu, even when food was scarce; but when he had undergone the
ceremony of being rubbed over with the fat of that bird by an old man,
he had thenceforth no objection to it. The threatened penalty was, that
young men, after eating it, would be afflicted with sores all over the
body; but the fact is, that it is too rich and oily for the old men to
allow any but themselves to partake of it. So that, upon the whole, in
New Holland, as in most other uncivilised countries, old age is a
period of much dignity, and of considerable enjoyment of life.

But, whatever may be the troubles, or whatever the enjoyments, of old
age, they are, in their very nature, even above our other troubles or
enjoyments, brief and transitory. The aged warrior of Australia can
plead no exemption from the common lot of mortality, and death draws
a veil over the chequered existence,--the faults and follies, the
talents and virtues, of every child of Adam. The various customs and
superstitions, connected with the death and burial of their friends,
are very numerous among the tribes of Australia, and some of them are
curious and peculiar. It would be impossible to give a full account of
them, but a few of the most remarkable may be selected. Throughout
all the funeral solemnities of savage and heathen nations the same
distinguishing mark is to be observed,--they are the vain devices, the
miserable inventions of men who sorrow for their departed friends as
those that have no hope. Nothing, it is asserted, can awake in the
breast more melancholy feelings than the funeral chants of the
Australians. They are sung by a whole chorus of females of all ages, and
the effect produced upon the bystanders by this wild music surpasses
belief. The following is a chant, which has been heard upon several such
occasions, and which, simple though it be, fully expresses the feelings
of a benighted heathen mourning over the grave of a friend whom he has
lost (as he thinks) for ever:--

_The young women sing_ My young brother, }
_The old women_ My young son, } again,
In future shall I
never see.

My young brother, }