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14 are, making allowances for differences of spelling and pronunciation, identical; five have evidently the same roots, and only two are widely different. It will be observed that only a very few words coincide with words of the same meaning in the dialects of the Gippsland tribes.

The people of the Yarra and the coast were separated from the Gippsland tribes by the waters of Western Port, and by dense scrubs extending from the inlets northwards to the southern rim of the Yarra basin. East of Western Port there is a tract of wild country—debatable ground—which was the scene of many battles in former times. It is said that it was held sometimes by the Western Port blacks and sometimes by the tribes inhabiting Western Gippsland.

The dialects of the Gippsland tribes show closer affinities with those of the Upper Murray than with those of the Lower Murray; and it may be presumed that Gippsland was peopled from a stream coming either across the Alps or coastwards from the north-east—and not from the stream that followed the