found that the
natives could usually, in three or four hours, procure as much food as
would last for the day, and that without fatigue or labour. They are not
provident in their provision for the future, but a sufficiency of food is
commonly laid by at the camp for the morning meal. In travelling, they
sometimes husband, with great care and abstinence, the stock they have
prepared for the journey; and though both fatigued and hungry, they will
eat sparingly, and share their morsel with their friends, without
encroaching too much upon their store, until some reasonable prospect
appears of getting it replenished.

In wet weather the natives suffer the most, as they are then indisposed
to leave their camps to look for food, and experience the inconveniences
both of cold and hunger. If food, at all tainted, is offered to a native
by Europeans, it is generally rejected with disgust. In their natural
state, however, they frequently eat either fish or animals almost in a
state of putridity.

Cannibalism is not common, though there is reason to believe, that it is
occasionally practised by some tribes, but under what circumstances it is
difficult to say. Native sorcerers are said to acquire their magic
influence by eating human flesh, but this is only done once in a
life-time.

[Note 70: The only authentic and detailed account of any instance of
cannibalism, that I am acquainted with, is found in Parliamentary Papers
on Australian Aborigines, published August, 1844, in a report of
Mr. Protector Sievewright, from Lake Tarong, in one of the Port Phillip
districts.

"On going out I found the whole of the men of the different tribes
(amounting to upwards of 100) engaged hand to hand in one general melee.

"On being directed by some of the women, who had likewise sought shelter
near my tent, to the huts of the Bolaghers, I there found a young woman,
supported in the arms of some of her tribe, quite insensible, and
bleeding from two severe wounds upon the right side of the face; she
continued in the same state of insensibility till about 11 o'clock, when
she expired.

"After fighting for nearly an hour, the men of the Bolagher tribe
returned to their huts, when finding that every means I had used to
restore the young woman was in vain, they gave vent to the most frantic
expressions of grief and rage, and were employed till daylight in
preparing themselves and weapons to renew the combat.

"Shortly before sunrise they again r