of them_,' says Miss Kingsley.[5]

Of all races now extant, the Australians are probably lowest in culture,
and, like the fauna of the continent, are nearest to the primitive
model. They have neither metals, bows, pottery, agriculture, nor fixed
habitations; and no traces of higher culture have anywhere been found
above or in the soil of the continent. This is important, for in some
respects their religious conceptions are so lofty that it would be natural
to explain them as the result either of European influence, or as relics
of a higher civilisation in the past. The former notion is discredited
by the fact that their best religious ideas are imparted in connection
with their ancient and secret mysteries, while for the second idea, that
they are degenerate from a loftier civilisation, there is absolutely no
evidence.

It has been suggested, indeed, by Mr. Spencer that the singularly complex
marriage customs of the Australian blacks point to a more polite condition
in their past history. Of this stage, as we said, no material traces have
ever been discovered, nor can degeneration be recent. Our earliest account
of the Australians is that of Dampier, who visited New Holland in the
unhappy year 1688. He found the natives 'the miserablest people in the
world. The Hodmadods, of Mononamatapa, though a nasty people, yet for
wealth are gentlemen to these: who have no houses, sheep, poultry, and
fruits of the earth.... They have no houses, but lie in the open air.'
Curiously enough, Dampier attests their _unselfishness_: the main ethical
feature in their religious teaching. 'Be it little or be it much they get,
every one has his part, as well the young and tender as the old and
feeble, who are not able to go abroad, as the strong and lusty.' Dampier
saw no metals used, nor any bows, merely boomerangs ('wooden cutlasses'),
and lances with points hardened in the fire. 'Their place of dwelling was
only a fire with a few boughs before it' (the _gunyeh_).

This description remains accurate for most of the unsophisticated
Australian tribes, but Dampier appears only to have seen ichthyophagous
coast blacks.

There is one more important point. In the _Bora_, or Australian
mysteries, at which knowledge of 'The Maker' and of his commandments is
imparted, the front teeth of the initiated are still knocked out. Now,
Dampier observed 'the two fore-teeth of their upper jaw are wanting in all
of them, men and women, old and young.' If th