er, as soon as anyone could detect that in which the suspected
ones retired. This resolution having been formed the men went into Perth
in order to see that no strange natives stole either of the young widows,
whilst the women lay weeping over the dead body.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE FUNERAL. FORMATION OF THE GRAVE.

I accompanied the men into Perth, and in the course of an hour was
summoned by the natives to witness the funeral ceremony. They had moved
the body about half a mile from the spot where the man died; the women
still leant over it, uttering the words, yang, yang, yang, and
occasionally chanting a few sentences.

There were but few men present, as they were watching the widows in
Perth. Yenna and Warrup, the brothers-in-law of Mulligo, were digging his
grave, which as usual extended due east and west; the Perth boyl-ya,
Weeban by name, who, being a relation of the deceased, could of course
have had no hand in occasioning his death, superintended the operations.
They commenced by digging with their sticks and hands several holes in a
straight line, and as deep as they could; they then united them, and
threw out the earth from the bottom of the pit thus made; all the white
sand was thrown carefully into two heaps, nearly in the form of a
European grave, and these heaps were situated one at the head and the
other at the foot of the hole they were digging, whilst the
dirty-coloured sand was thrown into two other heaps, one on each side.
The grave was very narrow, only just wide enough to admit the body of the
deceased. Old Weeban paid the greatest possible attention to see that the
east and west direction of the grave was preserved, and if the least
deviation from this line occurred in the heaps of sand, either at the
head or foot, he made some of the natives rectify it by sweeping the sand
into its proper form with boughs of trees.

Before the digging of the grave was completed many Europeans had arrived
at the spot for the purpose of witnessing the ceremony; the natives were
not a little annoyed at this, however they proceeded rapidly in their
work, occasionally employing a spade, but from the extreme narrowness of
the grave, it was by no means easy to make use of this tool. During the
process of digging, an insect having been thrown up, its motions were
watched with the most intense interest, and as this little animal thought
proper to crawl off in the direction of Guildford, an additional proof
was furnished t