rm above his head and brings it down with a sort of swoop,
swiftly launching the curved wood from his hand. At first the boomerang
skims along near the ground, then rises four or five feet, but only to
sink again, and again to rise. As you carefully and curiously watch its
course, and suppose it is just about to stop in its erratic career and
drop to the ground, it suddenly ceases its forward flight and rapidly
returns to the thrower. Sometimes in returning it takes a course similar
to its outward gyrations; at other times it returns straight as an
arrow, gently striking the thrower's body or falling to the ground at
his feet. It is thought that no white man can exactly learn the trick of
throwing this strange implement, and few ever attempt to throw one,--or
rather we should say, few attempt it a second time; nor can the native
himself explain how he does what we have described. "Me! I throw him,
just so,"--that is all the answer you can get from him. We were told
that the most expert of the blacks will not only kill a bird at a
considerable distance with the boomerang, but that they cause the bird
to be brought back to them by the weapon. This last degree of expertness
we certainly did not witness, nor do we exactly credit it; but we can
vouch for the first, as we have described it.

The common weapons possessed by the aborigines when first discovered by
the whites--besides the boomerang, which can inflict a severe if not
fatal wound--were heavy war-clubs curiously carved, wooden spears tipped
with flint, and many others made of sharpened stones. In throwing their
wooden spears they were wonderfully expert,--an art which they still
cultivate and willingly exhibit to strangers. A bullet from a rifle
speeds not more surely to the bull's-eye than do these spears when
thrown by the hand of a native; but the singular skill which can impart
such magic to a weapon like the boomerang, might well be supposed to
prove effective in launching a straight spear to its mark. All these
weapons constructed by the Australian natives are elaborately finished,
and so polished, indeed, as to surpass the effect of varnish, in every
way showing great care and patient labor in their manufacture. But
though possessed of such skill in the construction of weapons, they
appear to have none in the building of houses. In no part of the world
have we seen people so poorly lodged, for even the Digger Indians of
California afford themselves some sort