se of
mischief was this punishment resorted to, we should hear infinitely
less of cattle-spearing and shepherd-murdering than at present obtains.
I mention this, not from any good-will towards the blacks, who have
been causes of much sorrow to me and mine, but because I am sure that a
discontinuance of this idle habit would tend to lessen the existing
causes of friction between the two races.

In one of the camps we found a blanket--not, O reader, made of the
finest wool, deftly woven at the looms of Witney, but a blanket of Dame
Nature's own contrivance, stripped by the aboriginal from the bark of
the Australian tea-tree ('Melaleuca squarrosa'), no small shrub, but a
noble fellow standing from 150 to 200 feet high, and generally found in
the neighbourhood of fresh water, or in the beds of creeks. The bark
of this tree is of great thickness, and composed of a series of layers,
each of which can be easily separated from its neighbours, and, in
fact, much resembling a new book, just issued from the hot-press of the
binder. From a portion of this--the inner skins, I imagine--the blacks
manage to make a flexible, though not over warm, covering for the
winter nights, or for the newly-born piccaninnies. The whole of the
process I am not acquainted with, but from all I could gather from
Lizzie, the bark is stripped in a large sheet at the end of the rainy
season, the inner cuticle of several leaves carefully separated from
the remainder, and placed in fresh water, weighted with heavy stones to
retain it in its position. After the lapse of a certain time, known
only to the initiated, it is taken out, hung up to dry, and at a
peculiar stage, before all the moisture has evaporated, it is laid on a
flat rock, and cautiously beaten with smooth round stones, which
operation opens out the web sufficiently to make it quite pliant, after
which it is allowed to dry thoroughly, and is then ready for use.
These vegetable blankets are very strong, and must be a great
protection to the naked savages, but, despite the ease with which they
can be obtained, and the small time and labour occupied in their
preparation, but few of the gins have them, and none of the men.

We also found several fish-hooks of a most peculiar shape, and made out
of a curious material. In shape they were like a circular key-ring,
with a segment of exactly one-third cut out. One end was ground sharp,
and to the other was attached the line, cleverly spun from the