Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/471

 13 Bo-ye, s.—(Upper Swan dialect.) Stone; rock. The geological features of the country are not yet ascertained with any precision. The principal rocks are limestone, granite, basalt, and ironstone. The great strata appear to run nearly in a north and south direction. Next, and parallel to the sea coast, is a limestone district, with light sandy soil. Upon this are found the Tuart, the Mahogany, and the Banksia. To this succeeds a tract of stiffer soil, and reddish sandy loam, having a ferruginous sandstone, which is colonially called ironstone; and on this the red gum-tree is found intermixed with others. Next is the "Darling range" of hills, of no great elevation, having a granite base, and boulders of ironstone and breccia, which form a coarse gravelly soil, upon which the best mahogany is found. To this, as you proceed eastward, succeeds the granite country of the York district, the granite of which decomposes into a coarse gritty soil, bearing good grass, and capable of cultivation. The entire granite districts are occasionally intersected or interrupted by whinstone, which yields a rich, red, loamy soil. Forty miles to the east of York commences a broad belt of country, having naked rounded masses or hills of granite standing in a slightly undulating country, as islands do in the sea. About these hills water and grass are always found. This belt is nearly a hundred miles broad to the east of York. On this tract are found Tuart, Wurak, Nardarak trees; but there are no kangaroos, and few traces of natives. To this succeeds a country of a different, formation, on which a whitish trapstone was found, but neither water nor grass, as far as it could be penetrated. This, which was about 220 miles in the interior, on the parallel of Perth, is the greatest distance which has yet been reached in that direction.

Boyer, s.—A name given to certain stones of a smooth ovate shape, which are found in several places, and are traditionally said to have fallen from the sky.

Boyl—(K. G. S.) An entrance.

Boyl-ya, s.—A certain supposed power of witchcraft; sorcery.

Boylya Gădăk, s.—One possessed of Boylya; a wizard; magician. The men only are believed to possess this power. A person thus endowed can transport himself through the air at pleasure, being invisible to every one but his fellow-Boylyăgadăk. If he have a dislike to another native, he is supposed to be able to kill him, by stealing upon him at night, and secretly consuming his flesh; entering into his victim like pieces of quartz, and occasioning much pain. Another Boylyăgadăk can, however, disenchant the person thus afflicted. When this is done the Boylya is drawn out from the patient in the form of pieces of quartz, which are kept as great curiosities. The aborigines do not seem to comprehend that mortality is natural to man. All diseases and particularly those of a a fatal kind, are ascribed to supernatural influence, and hence the reason why, when one of them dies, another is invariably killed in return whether the deceased has died by the hand of an enemy, or by accident, or from natural causes. In the first place the death is revenged either on the murderer, or some one of his near relatives of the same family name. In either of the other cases, vengeance is wreaked on a connexion of the Boylyăgadăk, the suspected cause of death.