ndearment.
Perhaps under the heap which his hands had raised, and on which his eyes
were fixed, his imagination traced the form of her whom he might formerly
have fought for, and whom he now was never to behold again. Perhaps when
turning from the grave of his deceased companion, he directed all his
thoughts to the preservation of the little one she had left him; and when
he quitted the spot his anxiety might be directed to the child, in the
idea that he might one day see his Ba-rang-aroo revive in his little
motherless Dil-boong.

Cole-be's wife, who bore the same names as the deceased, lost them both
on this occasion, and was called by every one Bo-rahng-al-le-on. This
peculiarity was also observed by them with respect to a little girl of
ours, of whom Ba-rang-a-roo was so fond as to call her always by her own
name. On her decease she too was styled Bo-rahng-al-le-on.

Cole-be's wife, the namesake of the Ba-rang-a-roo I have just mentioned,
did not survive her many months. She died of a consumption, brought on by
suckling a little girl who was at her breast when she died. This
circumstance led to the knowledge of a curious but horrid custom which
obtains among these people. The mother died in the town, and when she was
taken to the grave her corpse was carried to the door of every hut and
house she had been accustomed to enter during the latter days of her
illness, the bearers presenting her with the same ceremonies as were used
at the funeral of Ba-loo-der-ry, when the little girl Dil-boong and the
boy Be-dia were placed before his corpse.

When the body was placed in the grave, the bye-standers were amazed to
see the father himself place the living child in it with the mother.
Having laid the child down, he threw upon it a large stone, and the grave
was instantly filled in by the other natives. The whole business was so
momentary, that our people had not time or presence of mind sufficient to
prevent it; and on speaking about it to Cole-be, be, so far from thinking
it inhuman, justified the extraordinary act by assuring us that as no
woman could be found to nurse the child it must die a much worse death
than that to which he had put it. As a similar circumstance occurred a
short time after, we have every reason to suppose the custom always
prevails among them; and this may in some degree account for the thinness
of population which has been observed among the natives of the country.*

[* Cole-be's child was about