s, even
amid the forests of New Holland, the _influence of woman_ will, in one
way or another, make itself felt.

The ceremonies observed at the funeral of a native vary, as might be
expected, in so great a space, but they are wild and impressive in every
part of New Holland. According to Collins, the natives of the colony
called New South Wales were in the habit of burning the bodies of those
who had passed the middle age of life, but burial seems the more
universal method of disposing of their dead among the Australians. Some
very curious drawings and figures cut in the rock were discovered by
Captain Grey, in North-Western Australia, but whether these were
burying-places does not appear. For the account of these works of rude
art, which is extremely interesting, but too long to transcribe, the
reader is referred to the delightful work of the traveller just
mentioned.

The shrieks and piercing cries uttered by the women over their dead
relatives, are said to be truly fearful, and agreeably to the ancient
custom of idolatrous eastern nations mentioned in 1 Kings xviii. 28,
and in Jer. xlviii. 37,[61] they tear and lacerate themselves most
frightfully, occasionally cutting off portions of their beards, and,
having singed them, throwing them upon the dead body. With respect to
their tombs, these are of various sorts in different districts. In the
gulph of Carpentaria, on the Northern coast, Flinders found several
skeletons of natives, standing upright in the hollow trunks of trees;
the skulls and bones, being smeared or painted partly red and partly
white, made a very strange appearance. On the banks of the river
Darling, in the interior of Eastern Australia, Major Mitchell fell in
with a tribe, which had evidently suffered greatly from small-pox,[62]
or some similar disease, and in the same neighbourhood he met with some
remarkable mounds or tombs, supposed to cover the remains of that
portion of the tribe which had been swept off by the same disease that
had left its marks upon the survivors. On a small hill, overlooking
the river, were three large tombs, of an oval shape, and about twelve
feet across in the longest diameter. Each stood in the centre of an
artificial hollow, the mound in the middle being about five feet high;
and on each of them were piled numerous withered branches and limbs of
trees, forming no unsuitable emblems of mortality. There were no trees
on this hill, save one quite dead, which seemed to p