ns and where, accordingly, we find it much more
in use than on the seacoast and better made, being often covered with
good carving.* (See Cambo, Volume 1, also small figures in Plate 28
above.)

(*Footnote. That Dampier saw this weapon also on the western coast in
latitude 16 degrees 50 minutes is evident from the following observation.
"These swords were afterwards found to be made of wood and rudely shaped
something like a cutlass.")

SHIELD OR HIELEMAN.

There is also much originality in the shield or hieleman of these people.
It is merely a piece of wood of little thickness and 2 feet 8 inches
long, tapering to each end, cut to an edge outwards and having a handle
or hole in the middle behind the thickest part. This is made of light
wood and affords protection from missiles, chiefly by the facility with
which it is turned round the centre or handle.

SKILL IN APPROACHING THE KANGAROO.

Great ingenuity is necessary and is as cleverly practised by the natives
in approaching the kangaroo. This they display in creeping, stalking with
bushes, advancing behind trees, etc. and to such a degree are their wits
sharpened by their appetites that they can even distinguish when the
kangaroo kills a fly; and they consider in their proceedings, from the
habit of the kangaroo to kill flies and smell the blood, whether the
animal may discover from the blood the fly contains that men are near.

FOOD OF THE NATIVES. MODES OF COOKING.

The natives are accustomed to cook such animals by digging a hole in the
ground, making a fire in it, and heating the stones found about. The
kangaroo is placed in this hole with the skin on, and is covered with
heated embers or warm stones.

OPOSSUM. SINGEING.

The opossum which constitutes the more ordinary food of the native is not
cooked so much, but only singed, so as to have a flavour of the singed
wool; but it is nevertheless palatable enough even to a white man.

VEGETABLE FOOD. THE SHOVEL.

The young natives of the interior usually carry a small wooden shovel
(see foreground figure, Plate 12 Volume 1) with one end of which they dig
up different roots, and with the other break into the large anthills for
the larvae, which they eat: the labour necessary to obtain a mouthful
even, of such indifferent food, being thus really more than would be
sufficient for the cultivation of the earth according to the more
provident arrangements of civilised men. Yet in a land affording such
meagre s