ular position, sung and danced round the place where the boy had
been laid, and then advancing in the same form towards the river, keeping
the right foot always in advance, they at last fairly drove the spirit
into the water and relieved the neighbourhood from so troublesome a
visitor.

[Note 89: "Dancing over him, shaking his frightful rattles, and singing
songs of incantation, in the hopes to cure him by a charm."--Catlin's
North American Indians, vol. i.p. 39.]

It was a long time before I lost a vivid impression of this ceremony; the
still hour of the night, the naked savages, with their fancifully painted
forms, their wild but solemn dirge, their uncouth gestures, and unnatural
noises, all tended to keep up an illusion of an unearthly character, and
contributed to produce a thrilling and imposing effect upon the mind.

At the Murray River, singular looking places are found sometimes, made by
the natives by piling small stones close together, upon their ends in the
ground, in a shape resembling the accompanying diagram, and projecting
four or five inches above the ground. The whole length of the place thus
inclosed, by one which I examined, was eleven yards; at the broad end it
was two yards wide, at the narrow end one. The position of this singular
looking place, was a clear space on the slope of a hill, the narrow end
being the lowest, on in the direction of the river. Inside the line of
stones, the ground was smoothed, and somewhat hollowed. The natives
called it Mooyumbuck, and said it was a place for disenchanting an
individual afflicted with boils. In other places, large heaps of small
loose stones are piled up like small haycocks, but for what purpose I
could never understand. This is done by the young men, and has some
connection probably with their ceremonies or amusements.

In others, singular shaped spaces are inclosed, by serpentine trenches, a
few inches deep, but for what purpose I know not, unless graves have
formerly existed there.

Another practice of the natives, when travelling from one place to
another, is to put stones up in the trees they pass, at different heights
from the ground, to indicate the height of the sun when they passed.
Other natives following, are thus made aware of the hour of the day when
their friends passed particular points. Captain Grey found the same
custom in Western Australia; vol. i. p. 113, he says:--

"I this day again remarked a circumstance, which had before t