d sprinkle over it
a few pinches of a kind of _earth_, which forms, together with the
bruised root, a sort of paste, that is thought exceedingly good, and
quite free from all injurious properties. A kind of paste, which is
sometimes baked into a cake, is also formed of many other roots. All
these grow wild, and are used exactly in their natural state, unless
burning the leaves of one plant in dry seasons to improve the root, or
similar trifling pains respecting their growth, can deserve the name of
cultivation. The fungus is also greedily devoured by the unfastidious
natives of Australia, and a kind of gum, resembling what is in England
called _gum-tragacanth_, is very abundant and popular among them. One
traveller, Captain Sturt, who was among the first to notice the use of
this peculiar food, imagined that it was eaten only from dire necessity.
Indeed, it is an amusing proof of the occasional errors into which hasty
impressions will lead intelligent men, that he pities as "unfortunate
creatures reduced to the last extremity" those who were, in reality,
regaling themselves upon a favourite luxury. During summer the acacias,
growing in swampy plains, are positively loaded with this gum, and the
natives assemble in great numbers to feast upon it. On such occasions a
sort of fair is held among those that frequent these yearly meetings,
and fun, frolic, and quarrelling of every description prevail, as in
similar meetings of our own countrymen.

The pulp of the nut of a species of palm is called _by-yu_, and it is a
curious fact, that, although in its natural state this is a rank poison,
the natives have, nevertheless, a method of depriving it of its
mischievous qualities, and it becomes an agreeable and nourishing
article of food. Europeans, ignorant of the mode of preparing this nut,
are sure to pay for their rashness, if they venture to eat it in its
unprepared state. The women collect these nuts from the palms in the
month of March, (the beginning of autumn,) and leave them to soak for
several days in some shallow pool; after the _by-yu_ has been
sufficiently soaked, they dig, in a dry sandy place, holes about one
foot across and nearly two feet in depth: these holes are lined with
rushes, and filled with nuts, over which last a little sand is
sprinkled, and then all is covered nicely up with the tops of the
grass-tree. And thus, in about a fortnight, the pulp which encloses the
nut becomes quite dry, and it is then fit