this country Mutton-fish, are met with abundantly. These are often taken in deep water by the native women, who dive for them, and force them from the rocks by means of a wooden chisel. They put them into an oval bag, and bring them up suspended round their necks.

While we were at Woolnorth, a party of the domesticated Blacks, who had been with G. A. Robinson, on the west coast, arrived from Barren Island, under charge of Anthony Cottrell, G. A. Robinson's assistant. A woman of this party was the sole relick of a tribe that inhabited the western side of the Huon River, on the south coast. I enquired of her what became of the people of her country. She answered, They all died. I then asked what killed them. An aged man of the Bruny Island tribe, who is one of their doctors, and was sitting by, replied, The Devil. I desired to know how he managed. The woman began to cough violently, to show me how they were affected, and she said, that when the rest were all dead, she made a "catamoran," a sort of raft, and crossed D'Entrecasteaux Channel to Bruny Island, and joined a tribe there.

The old Doctor was smeared and streaked with red ochre and grease, with which his beard was also dressed: he is affected with fits of spasmodic contraction of the muscles of one breast, which he attributes, as they do all other diseases, to the devil; and he is cunning enough to avail himself of the singular effect produced upon him by this malady, to impose upon his country people, under the idea of satanic inspiration. When it comes on, he seizes a stick out of the fire, and brandishes it about him, in the manner that is common under circumstances of rage among this people. The Doctor had his instruments lying by him, consisting of pieces of broken glass, picked up on the shore; with these he cuts deep gashes in any part affected with pain.

One day, when sitting by the fire of the natives, watching a woman making the oval bags of open work, used in fishing, &c. of the leaves of a sedgy plant, which she split with great dexterity, and after having divided them into strips of proper width, softened by drawing through the fire, I observed another woman looking carefully about among the

grass, and enquired what she was seeking. Her companions replied, to my surprise, A needle. To this I answered, that I had often heard hopeless search compared to "seeking a needle in a bottle of hay," and A. Cottrell, who sat by, said, You will see she will find it: you have no idea how keen sighted and persevering they are; and after some time she picked up her needle, which was one of English manufacture, and not of large size!

These people not only smear their bodies with red ochre and grease, but sometimes rouge the prominent parts tastefully with the former article, and they draw lines, that by no means improve their appearance, with a black, glittering, mineral, probably an ore of antimony, above and below their eyes.— One day we noticed a woman arranging several stones that were flat, oval, and about two inches wide, and marked in various directions with black and red lines. These we learned represented absent friends, and one larger than the rest, a corpulent woman on Flinders Island, known by the name of Mother Brown.-The arithmetic of the Aborigines is very limited, amounting only to one, two, plenty. As they cannot state in numbers the amount of persons present on any occasion, they give their names.-The west coast being very humid, those inhabiting it make huts for winter habitations, by clearing a circular area in a thicket of slender, young, Teatree, and drawing the tops of the surrounding bushes together, and thatching these with branches and grass. Sometimes for temporary shelter, they use large slabs of bark, from some of the Gum-trees.

Each tribe of the Aborigines is divided into several families, and each family, consisting of a few individuals, occupies its own fire. Though they rarely remain two days in a place, they seldom travel far at a time. Each tribe keeps much to its own district-a circumstance that may in some measure account for the variety of dialect. The tribe called by the settlers, the Ben Lomond tribe, occupied the north-east portion of V. D. Land; that called, the Oyster Bay tribe, the south-east; the Stony Creek tribe, the middle portion of the country; and the Western tribe, the west coast. Besides these, there were also a few smaller sections. Those on the

west coast differed from those on the east, in some of their customs. The former did not mark their bodies with the same regularity as the latter: the scars upon those of the west coast appeared to have proceeded from irregular surgical cuts, and were principally upon the chest, which is very liable to be affected by inflammation, that often speedily issues in death. A large proportion of these people died from this cause, in the course of the late inclement season.

Lately, several of these people were sick upon the West Hunter or Barren Island, and one of the women died. The men formed a pile of logs, and at sunset, placed the body of the woman upon it, supported by small wood, which concealed her, and formed a pyramid. They then placed their sick people around the pile, at a short distance. On A. Cottrel, our informant, enquiring the reason of this, they told him that the dead woman would come in the night and take the devil out of them. At daybreak the pile was set on fire, and fresh wood added as any part of the body became exposed, till the whole was consumed. The ashes of the dead were collected in a piece of Kangaroo-skin, and every morning, before sunrise, till they were consumed, a portion of them was smeared over the faces of the survivors, and a death song sung, with great emotion, tears clearing away lines among the ashes. The store of ashes, in the mean time, was suspended about one of their necks. The child of the deceased was carefully nursed.

A few days after the decease of this woman, a man, who was ill at the time, stated, that he should die when the sun went down, and requested the other men would bring wood and form a pile. While the work was going forward, he rested against some logs that were to form part of it, to see them execute the work: he became worse as the day progressed, and died before night.

The practice of burning the dead, is said to have extended to the natives of Bruny Island; but those of the east coast put the deceased into hollow trees, and fenced them in with bushes. They do not consider a person completely dead till the sun goes down!

The chiefs among these tribes are merely heads of families

of extraordinary prowess. One of these now here, belonging an eastern tribe, has not the flattened nose common to his countrymen, but is much more like a European in features.

In the course of our tarriance at Woolnorth, we twice had meetings with such of the people as could be assembled. These, with a few Aborigines, amounted to forty-five, on one occasion, and to fifty-eight on another. The company were reverent in their deportment, while we read to them from the Scriptures, and spoke to them respecting the way of salvation. This was strikingly the case with a few of the natives who could understand a little English. The solemn feeling that pervaded the mind, especially during intervals of silence, was very comforting. The state of the people at this settlement was such as greatly needed religious instruction.

We returned to Circular Head on the 13th of 11th mo. by the Fanny, which had on board forty-eight young Merino Rams, designed for sale at Launceston, and which had been fed upon Trefoil Island.

CHAPTER IX.

Circular Head.-Anchorage.-Highfield Plain.-Work People.-Indentured Ser

vants.-Flagellation.-Eagles.-Sponges.-Shells.-Crabs.-Weather.-Ants.

-Journey.-Rivers.-Grass-trees.-Blandfordia.-Banksia serratifolia.-Human Bones.--Scrub and Fern.-Fossil Shells.-Table Cape.-Trees, &c.-Emu Bay. Magnificent Forest.-Gigantic Trees.-Tree-ferns.-Plains.—Aborigines.-Road.-Arrival at the Hampshire Hills.

On arriving at Circular Head, we found the Conch, bound for the Isle of France and the Cape of Good Hope, lying at the jetty, where she had taken shelter from adverse winds. On landing, a young man was waiting with assistants, to convey our luggage to a small cottage, which Edward Curr had kindly appropriated to our use, his large family fully occupying his own house: he received us kindly, and invited us to take our meals at his table during our stay here.

Circular Head is a basaltic peninsula, on a flat part of the coast it takes its name from a large circular bluff, facing the east, and at the south side of which is the anchorage. Portions of the peninsula, which contains about 4,000 acres, are hilly and clothed with wood: much of the soil is good, and notwithstanding some of it is light, it is very productive. On the main land, the coast is sandy, or swampy, and further in, the forest is dense and lofty.

The whole grant of the V. D. Land Company here, is 20,000 acres. The dwellings of persons in their employment, are chiefly on the portion of the peninsula called Highfield Plain, which lies to the north-west of the bluff. We had several meetings with the work-people at this place, generally in the carpenter's shop. Their remote situation excited our sympathy, and we endeavoured to direct them