last stages of consumption:

"Her case was hopeless, and when she was in almost the
last agony of mortal dissolution I was astounded at her
efforts at concealment, indicative of extreme modesty.
As I drew her opossum rug over her poor emaciated body
the look of gratitude which came from her dying eyes
told me in language more eloquent than words that
beneath that dark and dying exterior there was a soul
which in a few hours angels would delight to honor."

The poor woman was probably cold and glad to be covered; if she had
any modesty regarding exposure of the body she could have learned it
from no one but the dreadful, degraded whites, for the Australian
himself is an utter stranger to such a feeling. On this point the
explorers and students of the natives are unanimous. Both men and
women went absolutely naked except in those regions where the climate
was cold.

NAKED AND NOT ASHAMED

"They are as innocent of shame as the animals of the forest," says E.
Palmer; and J. Bonwick writes: "Nakedness is no shame with them. As a
French writer once remarked to a lady, 'With a pair of gloves you
could clothe six men.'" Even ornaments are worn by the men only:
"females are content with their natural charms." W.E. Roth, in his
standard work on the Queensland natives, says that "with both sexes
the privates are only covered on special public occasions, or when in
close proximity to white settlements." With the Warburton River tribe
(Curr, II, 18) "the women go quite naked, and the men have only a belt
made of human hair round the waist from which a fringe spun of hair of
rats hangs in front." Sturt wrote (I., 106): "The men are much better
looking than the women; both go perfectly naked."

At the dances a covering of feathers or leaves is sometimes worn by
the women, but is removed as soon as the dance is over. Narrinyeri
girls, says Taplin (15), "wear a sort of apron of fringe, called
Kaininggi, until they bear their first child. If they have no children
it is taken from them and burned by their husbands while they are
asleep." Meyer (189) says the same of the Encounter Bay tribe, and
similar customs prevailed at Port Jackson and many other places.
Summing up the observations of Cook, Turnbull, Cunningham, Tench,
Hunter, and others, Waitz remarks (VI., 737):

"In the region of Sydney, too, the natives used to be
entirely nude, and as late as 1816 men would go about