lready noticed, that for six
hundred miles to the west and north-west from the Great Bight,
circumcision is unknown. The tribes, therefore, who practise it, cannot
have come from that direction, neither are they likely to have come from
the eastward, for after crossing the head of the Port Lincoln peninsula,
and descending towards Adelaide, we find the rite of circumcision alone
is practised, without any other ceremony in connection with it. Now, in a
change of habits or customs, originating in the wandering, unsettled life
of savages, it is very likely, that many of their original customs may
gradually be dropped or forgotten; but it is scarcely probable, that they
should be again revived by their descendants, after a long period of
oblivion, and when those tribes from whom they more immediately
proceeded, no longer remembered or recognised such ceremonials. By
extending the inquiry still further to the east, the position I have
assumed is more forcibly borne out, for the rite of circumcision itself
then becomes unknown. It is evident, therefore, that the Adelaide or Port
Lincoln natives could not have come along either the eastern or western
coasts, and retained customs that are there quite unknown, neither could
they have come across the country inland, in the direction of the
Darling, for the ceremonies alluded to are equally unknown there. They
must then have crossed almost directly from the north-western coast,
towards the south-eastern extremity of the great Australian Bight. And
from them the Adelaide natives would appear to be a branch or offset.

Returning to the north-west coast, and tracing down the route of the
third division of the parent family, from the south-east Bight of
Carpentaria, towards Fort Bourke upon the Darling, we shall find, that by
far the greatest and most fertile portion of New Holland appears to have
been peopled by it. In its progress, offsets and ramifications would have
branched off in every direction along the various ranges or watercourses
contiguous to the line of route. All the rivers running towards the
eastern coast, together with the Nammoy, the Gwyder, the Castlereagh,
Macquarie, Bogan, Lochlan, Darling, Hume, Goulburn, etc. with their many
branches and tributaries, would each afford so many routes for the
different sub-divisions of the main body, to spread over the varied and
fertile regions of Eastern, South-eastern, and part of Southern
Australia. As tribe separated from tri