ession "hung up" may seem curious, so I hasten
to explain that the natives tied up their spears in bunches and placed
them on the scrub bushes.

Next morning I brought down a few hawks on the wing with my bow and
arrows, and then the amazement of the natives was quite comical to
witness. Shooting arrows in a straight line astonished them somewhat,
but the more bombastic among them would say, "Why I can do that," and
taking his woomerah he would hurl a spear a long distance. Not one of
them, however, was able _to throw a spear upwards_, so I scored over even
the most redoubtable chiefs. It may be well to explain, that birds are
always to be found hovering about a native camp; they act as scavengers,
and their presence in the sky is always an indication that an encampment
is somewhere in the vicinity. These birds are especially on the spot
when the blacks set fire to the bush and organise a big battue. At such
times the rats and lizards rush out into the open, and the hawks reap a
fine harvest.

My natives are referred to as "blacks," or "black-fellows," but they are
not really _black_, their hue being rather a brown, ranging from a very
dark brown, indeed, to almost the lightness of a Malay. I found the
coast tribes lightest in hue, while the inland natives were very much
darker. Here I may mention that after having been on my way south for
some months, I began to notice a total difference between the natives I
met and my own people in the Cambridge Gulf district. The tribes I was
now encountering daily were inferior in physique, and had inferior war
implements; I do not remember that they had any shields.

The blacks I had whistled and jigged before were, perhaps, the ugliest of
all the aborigines I had met, which was saying a very great deal. The
men were very short, averaging little more than five feet, with low
foreheads and hideously repulsive features. I noticed, however, that the
animals they had for food seemed very much fatter than similar creatures
farther north. One thing I was grateful to these people for was honey,
which I urgently required for medicinal purposes. They were very sorry
when we left them, and a small band of warriors accompanied us on our
first day's march. We were then handed on from tribe to tribe, smoke
signals being sent up to inform the next "nation" that friendly strangers
were coming.

Nevertheless, I gradually became uneasy. We were evidently getting into
a country wh