r power: many can read the Bible, and a few
write.

The common native belief in the transmigration of souls did not extend, I
was glad to find, beyond the mothers, whom nothing could induce to think
otherwise. When we were at Preservation Island, there was a young woman
on her way, in company with her father, to Port Dalrymple, to be married
to a European; and I afterwards learned from the clergyman there, that he
had not for some time seen a young person who appeared to be so well
aware of the solemn vow she was making.

MUTTON BIRDS.

The principal trade of the Straitsmen is in the feathers of mutton birds
(Sooty Petrels) which annually visit the islands, between the 15th and
20th of November, for the purposes of incubation. Each bird lays only two
eggs, about the size of that of a goose, and almost as good in flavour.
The male sits by day and the female by night, each going to sea in turn
to feed. As soon as the young take wing they leave the islands. Their
nests are two or three feet underground, and so close that it is scarcely
possible to walk without falling. The collection of the eggs and birds,
which is the business of the women, is frequently attended with great
risk, as venomous snakes are often found in the holes. When the sealers
wish to catch them in large quantities they build a hedge a little above
the beach, sometimes half a mile in length. Towards daylight, when the
birds are about to put to sea, the men station themselves at the
extremities, and their prey, not being able to take flight off the
ground, run down towards the water until obstructed by the hedge, when
they are driven towards the centre, where a hole about five feet deep is
prepared to receive them; in this they effectually smother each other.
The birds are then plucked and their carcasses generally thrown in a heap
to waste, whilst the feathers are pressed in bags and taken to Launceston
for sale.* The feathers of twenty birds weigh one pound; and the cargoes
of two boats I saw, consisted of thirty bags, each weighing nearly thirty
pounds--the spoil of eighteen thousand birds! I may add, that unless
great pains are taken in curing, the smell will always prevent a bed made
of them from being mistaken for one composed of the Orkney goose
feathers. Some of the birds are preserved by smoking, and form the
principal food of the Straitsmen, resembling mutton, according to their
taste, though none of us could perceive the similarity.

(*Foot