six to ten feet long, at least the fighting spears are.
Some of the tribes living along the rivers have spears fifteen or
eighteen feet long, intended for fishing purposes and not for war.

Harry wanted to know what was the religious belief of the blacks, and
what were their ideas about the creation.

"As to religion," the gentleman answered, "they don't seem to have much,
and the little they do have is of a very mixed character. Like all
savages, they believe in good and bad spirits, and they treat the bad
spirits with much more ceremony than they do the good ones; on the
ground, I presume, that it is necessary to propitiate the bad spirits to
save themselves from injury, while the good ones can be relied upon not
to do any harm. Some of the tribes believe in a Great Spirit or Supreme
Being, while others have no idea of the kind. They have a good many
superstitions, and, though not a people of much imagination, they have
quite a variety of mythical stories that originated a long time ago, and
have been handed down by tradition. It is a curious circumstance that
some of these myths repeat quite closely the story of the creation, the
fall, and the deluge, but where they came from nobody can tell."

"Is there any book where we can find any of these traditions?" Harry
asked.

"Oh, certainly; they have been collected and published, but I can give
you the principal ones from memory."

"The story about the creation is, that one of the spirits that ruled the
world created two men out of the dust of the earth, and gave these two
men a very rich country to live in. Another spirit created two women and
gave one of them to each man. Then he gave spears to each of the men,
and told them to kill kangaroos with their weapons, and gave sticks to
the women, with which to dig roots out of the ground. Thus it came about
that men carry spears and clubs as weapons, while the women perform most
of the menial work. The men and women were commanded to live together,
and in this way the world in time became full of people. They grew so
numerous in the region where they were, that the great spirits caused
storms to arise and high winds to blow in order to scatter the people
over the globe.

"The tradition about the first sin is, that the first man and woman were
ordered by the spirits not to go near a certain tree, as a bat lived
there which must not be disturbed. One of the women went too near the
tree, her curiosity having got the bett