bad treatment from other females, amongst
whom she is brought a stranger by her captor; and rarely is a form of
unusual grace and elegance seen, but it is marked and scarred by the
furrows of old wounds; while many females thus wander several hundreds
of miles from the home of their infancy, without any corresponding ties
of affection being formed to recompense them for those so rudely torn
asunder. As may be well imagined, a marriage thus roughly commenced
is not very smooth in its continuance; and the most cruel
punishments--violent beating, throwing spears or burning brands,
&c.--are frequently inflicted upon the weaker party, without any
sufficient provocation having been given. It is evident, that treatment
of this kind, together with the immensely long journeys which they are
compelled to take, always accompanying their husbands on every
excursion, must be very injurious to the constitution and healthiness of
the weaker sex. And to these trials must be added the constant carrying
of those children that are yet unable to travel, the perpetual search
for food, and preparation of it when it is obtained, besides many other
laborious offices performed by the women, all which being reckoned up
together, will form a life of toil and misery, which we may hope is
endured by no other human beings beside the females of Australia. Nor is
such treatment without its ill effect upon the tempers and dispositions
of the female sex. The ferocity of the women, when it is excited,
exceeds that of the men; they deal dreadful blows at one another with
their long sticks, and, if ever the husband is about to spear in the
leg, or beat, one of his wives, the others are certain to set on her,
and treat her with great inhumanity.

[43] The men frequently indulge a great degree of indolence at the
expense of the women, who are compelled to sit in their canoe, exposed
to the fervour of a mid-day sun, hour after hour, chanting their little
song, and inviting the fish beneath them to take their bait; for without
a sufficient quantity to make a meal for their tyrants, who are lying
asleep at their ease, they would meet but a rude reception on their
landing.--COLLINS' _Account of Colony of New South Wales_, p. 387.

[44] Playing at "stealing a wife" is a common game with the Australian
children.

One custom, which to Europeans seems extremely remarkable, is that of
the family name of the _mother_, and not of the _father_, beco