Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/254

 It will thus seem, that in this part of Australia the blacks can never suffer from extreme hunger, or ever die from starvation, which catastrophe often occurs in New Holland, according to some authors. Indeed, throughout all the country along the eastern coast, the blacks have never suffered so much from scarcity of food as many commiserating writers have supposed; and even in the long settled district of Illawarra, near Sydney, they experience no difficulty in procuring abundance of food in the creeks and brushes.

It has been reported in some communication which I remember to have read from one of the German missionaries at Moreton Bay, that the natives have occasionally suffered so severely from hunger, that they have been known to bleed themselves, and afterwards cook the blood and eat it. So far from this being from hunger, I have known the same thing to be done at the MacLeay river, when abundance of food was close at hand; it is, in fact, a fancied cure for some ailment, and the bleeding is carefully performed with a piece of broken shell. Another practice, somewhat similar, but still more revolting, is also common among the MacLeay river tribes, in a case of illness. The wife or gin of the sick man procures a hollow conjeboi leaf, and a strong piece of string made of opossum fur closely twisted; she then draws the string violently backwards and forwards against her gums until they are terribly lacerated, and bleed profusely. She spits