a thick skull, and resents his blows, when a battle
ensues, and not unfrequently ends in the discomfiture
of the Adonis."

Similarly G.B. Wilkinson describes how the young men go, usually in
groups of two or three, to capture brides of hostile tribes. They lurk
about in concealment till they see that the women are alone, when they
pounce upon them and, either by persuasion or blows, take away those
they want; whereupon they try to regain their own tribe before pursuit
can be attempted. "This stealing of wives is one cause of the frequent
wars that take place amongst the natives."

Barrington's _History of New South Wales_ is adorned with the picture
of a big naked man having beside him, on her back, a beautifully
formed naked girl whom he is dragging away by one arm. The monster, we
read in the text, has come upon her unawares, clubbed her on the head
and other parts of the body,

"then snatching up one of her arms, he drags her,
streaming with blood from her wounds, through the
woods, over stones, rocks, hills, and logs, with all
the violence and determination of a savage," etc.

Curr (I., 237) objects to this picture as a gross exaggeration. He
also declares (I., 108) that it is only on rare occasions that a wife
is captured from another tribe and carried off, and that at present
woman-stealing is not encouraged, as it is apt to involve a whole
tribe in war for one man's sake. From older writers, however, one gets
the impression that wife-stealing was a common custom. Howitt (351)
remarks concerning the "wild white man" William Buckley, who lived
many years among the natives, and whose adventures were written up by
John Morgan, that at first sight his statements "seem to record merely
a series of duels and battles about women who were stolen, speared,
and slaughtered;" and Brough Smyth (77) quotes John Bulmer, who says
that among the Gippsland natives

"sometimes a man who has no sister [to swap] will, in
desperation, steal a wife; but this is invariably a
cause of bloodshed. Should a woman object to go with
her husband, violence would be used. I have seen a man
drag away a woman by the hair of her head. Often a club
is used until the poor creature is frightened into
submission."

In South Australia there is a special expression for
bride-stealing--_Milla mangkondi,_ or force-marriage. (Bonwick, 65.)

Mitchell (I., 307) also observed that the