but soon found ourselves unequal to the
task, owing to the enormous distances we had to travel in search of the
ball. Therefore we soon abandoned the cricket, and took up football,
which was very much more successful.

We had a nice large football made of soft goose-skin stuffed with the
paper bark; and in considering our game you must always bear in mind that
boots or footgear of any kind were quite unknown. The great drawback of
football, from the native point of view, was that it entailed so much
exertion, which could be otherwise expended in a far more profitable and
practical manner. They argued that if they put the exertion requisite
for a game of football into a hunt for food, they would have enough meat
to last them for many days. It was, of course, utterly impossible to
bring them round to my view of sports and games. With regard to the
abandoned cricket, they delighted in hitting the ball and in catching
it--oh! they were wonderfully expert at this--but as to running after the
ball, this was quite impossible.

About this time the girls showed me the steps of an Irish jig, which I
quickly picked up and soon became quite an adept, much to the delight of
the natives, who never tired of watching my gyrations. I kept them in a
constant state of wonderment, so that even my very hair--now about three
feet long--commanded their respect and admiration!

Sometimes I would waltz with the younger girl, whilst her sister whistled
an old familiar air. When I danced, the blacks would squat in a huge
circle around me; those in the front rank keeping time by beating drums
that I had made and presented to them. The bodies of the drums were made
from sections of trees which I found already hollowed out by the ants.
These wonderful little insects would bore through and through the core of
the trunk, leaving only the outer shell, which soon became light and dry.
I then scraped out with my tomahawk any of the rough inner part that
remained, and stretched over the ends of each section a pair of the
thinnest wallaby skins I could find; these skins were held taut by sinews
from the tail of a kangaroo. I tried emu-skins for the drum-heads, but
found they were no good, as they soon became perforated when I scraped
them.

Never a day passed but we eagerly scanned the glistening sea in the hope
of sighting a passing sail. One vessel actually came right into our bay
from the north, but she suddenly turned right back on the co