e
Torrens; as, while it does not interfere with the rule that the name
given by the first discoverer should be retained, will prevent the
recurrence of the misapprehension and inconvenience of having two
important rivers with the same designation on the maps of Australia. With
regard to the numbers and habits of the aborigines, I could collect
little information, as only a collective number of about 100 men, a few
women and children, were seen, in small scattered parties; but, judging
from the number of encampments seen, at least a thousand must visit the
banks of the river; and it is probable that the whole of the inhabitants
for at least 100 miles on each side are dependent on it for water during
the dry season. Neither sex wear any clothing. Their weapons and utensils
are similar to those used on the eastern coast; nor was there any
characteristic by which they could be observed to differ from the
aborigines of other portions of Australia. Fish, rats, grass seeds, and a
few roots, constitute their chief food. On the upper part of the river
they bury their dead, piling wood on the grave; near the junction of the
Thompson they suspend the bodies in nets, and afterwards remove the
bones; while on Cooper's Creek the graves are mounds of earth three to
four feet high, apparently without any excavation, and surmounted by a
pile of dead wood. In the last-named locality the number of burial mounds
which had been constructed about two years ago greatly exceed the
proportion of deaths which could have possibly occurred in any ordinary
season of mortality, even assuming the densest population known in any
other part of Australia; and it is not improbable that the seasons of
drought which proved so destructive to the tree vegetation higher up the
river may have been equally disastrous in its effects on the aboriginal
inhabitants of this portion of the interior.

A.C. GREGORY.

Sydney, 27 August, 1858.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Journals of Australian Explorations
by A C and F T Gregory

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