Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/207

( 182 ) grass is convenient, it is interwoven with the branches. Their fires are made at the very entrance of the huts, and if the wind shifts must be immediately removed. We had no opportunity of observing their method of first kindling a fire, as the parties we saw had always a fire-brand with them, by which, and a little dry grass, they soon made a "roaring blaze."

The only traces of society we could observe, was in a cluster of five huts, near which a well of brackish water was probably the only inducement to so close a neighbourhood. How they supply themselves with water in general we were at a loss to guess, for, upon the closest examination, none was found within several miles of the place