In The Open Parts There Were
Many Grass-Trees, - A Plant Which, In Appearance, Has Some
Affinity With The Palm; But, Instead Of Being Surmounted By
A Crown Of Noble Fronds, It Can Boast Merely Of A Tuft Of
Very Coarse Grass-Like Leaves.
The general bright green colour
of the brushwood and other plants, viewed from a distance,
seemed to promise fertility.
A single walk, however, was enough
to dispel such an illusion; and he who thinks with me will never
wish to walk again in so uninviting a country.
One day I accompanied Captain Fitz Roy to Bald Head;
the place mentioned by so many navigators, where some imagined
that they saw corals, and others that they saw petrified
trees, standing in the position in which they had grown.
According to our view, the beds have been formed by the
wind having heaped up fine sand, composed of minute rounded
particles of shells and corals, during which process
branches and roots of trees, together with many land-shells,
became enclosed. The whole then became consolidated by
the percolation of calcareous matter; and the cylindrical
cavities left by the decaying of the wood, were thus also
filled up with a hard pseudo-stalactical stone. The weather
is now wearing away the softer parts, and in consequence
the hard casts of the roots and branches of the trees project
above the surface, and, in a singularly deceptive manner,
resemble the stumps of a dead thicket.
A large tribe of natives, called the White Cockatoo men
happened to pay the settlement a visit while we were there.
These men, as well as those of the tribe belonging to King
George's Sound, being tempted by the offer of some tubs of
rice and sugar, were persuaded to hold a "corrobery," or
great dancing-party. As soon as it grew dark, small fires
were lighted, and the men commenced their toilet, which
consisted in painting themselves white in spots and lines.
As soon as all was ready, large fires were kept blazing,
round which the women and children were collected as spectators;
the Cockatoo and King George's men formed two distinct
parties, and generally danced in answer to each other.
The dancing consisted in their running either sideways or in
Indian file into an open space, and stamping the ground with
great force as they marched together. Their heavy footsteps
were accompanied by a kind of grunt, by beating their
clubs and spears together, and by various other gesticulations,
such as extending their arms and wriggling their
bodies. It was a most rude, barbarous scene, and, to our
ideas, without any sort of meaning; but we observed that
the black women and children watched it with the greatest
pleasure. Perhaps these dances originally represented actions,
such as wars and victories; there was one called the Emu
dance, in which each man extended his arm in a bent manner,
like the neck of that bird. In another dance, one man
imitated the movements of a kangaroo grazing in the woods,
whilst a second crawled up, and pretended to spear him.
When both tribes mingled in the dance, the ground trembled
with the heaviness of their steps, and the air resounded with
their wild cries. Every one appeared in high spirits, and the
group of nearly naked figures, viewed by the light of the
blazing fires, all moving in hideous harmony, formed a perfect
display of a festival amongst the lowest barbarians. In
Tierra del Fuego, we have beheld many curious scenes in
savage life, but never, I think, one where the natives were
in such high spirits, and so perfectly at their ease. After
the dancing was over, the whole party formed a great circle
on the ground, and the boiled rice and sugar was distributed,
to the delight of all.
After several tedious delays from clouded weather, on the
14th of March, we gladly stood out of King George's Sound
on our course to Keeling Island. Farewell, Australia! you
are a rising child, and doubtless some day will reign a great
princess in the South: but you are too great and ambitious
for affection, yet not great enough for respect. I leave your
shores without sorrow or regret.
[1] It is remarkable how the same disease is modified in
different climates. At the little island of St. Helena the
introduction of scarlet fever is dreaded as a plague. In some
countries, foreigners and natives are as differently affected by
certain contagious disorders as if they had been different
animals; of which fact some instances have occurred in Chile;
and, according to Humboldt, in Mexico (Polit. Essay, New Spain,
vol. iv.).
[2] Narrative of Missionary Enterprise, p. 282.
[3] Captain Beechey (chap. iv., vol. i.) states that the
inhabitants of Pitcairn Island are firmly convinced that after
the arrival of every ship they suffer cutaneous and other
disorders. Captain Beechey attributes this to the change of diet
during the time of the visit. Dr. Macculloch (Western Isles,
vol. ii. p. 32) says: "It is asserted, that on the arrival of a
stranger (at St. Kilda) all the inhabitants, in the common
phraseology, catch a cold." Dr. Macculloch considers the whole
case, although often previously affirmed, as ludicrous. He adds,
however, that "the question was put by us to the inhabitants who
unanimously agreed in the story." In Vancouver's Voyage, there
is a somewhat similar statement with respect to Otaheite. Dr.
Dieffenbach, in a note to his translation of the Journal, states
that the same fact is universally believed by the inhabitants of
the Chatham Islands, and in parts of New Zealand. It is
impossible that such a belief should have become universal in
the northern hemisphere, at the Antipodes, and in the Pacific,
without some good foundation. Humboldt (Polit. Essay on King of
New Spain, vol. iv.) says, that the great epidemics of Panama
and Callao are "marked" by the arrival of ships from Chile,
because the people from that temperate region, first experience
the fatal effects of the torrid zones.
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