Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/116

 musical as any European tongue. Those who spoke it might for loyalty to their laws and mutual kindness to one another put to the blush the best of their detractors. It has been objected that ignorance of the meaning of some songs they sang proved a low order of intelligence. Yet in Europe thousands flock to operatic performances of which, if they could distinguish, they would not understand the words. New songs amongst the Australians with appropriate dances, were to them like the last composition of Mozart or Rossini to Europeans. The perfection of acting was aimed at by each man in the tribe. Woe betide the unlucky wight who committed a mistake in the public performance, or missed the proper turn in the air while singing by his camp-fire. Humiliation followed him for weeks from the good-humoured taunts of the tribe. The words of the songs or chants were few, but were often repeated as the harmony ran its round. The performance of the dances (or, as they were called in Sydney "corobborrees," whence the name became general amongst whites and blacks) was invested with traditionary interest amounting to a cult. The composer who could minister to it was an especial favourite with his tribe, and of great repute abroad. The usual pictorial representation of a corrobboree shows the natives with legs extended, with white lines painted on them. But no painting can portray the intensity and rapidity of the movement communicated to these lines, while, without letting the sole of his foot leave the ground, the dancer by the same motion gradually passed laterally over the ground, and caused the muscles on his thigh to quiver. Mr. Eyre remarks that this is "a peculiarity probably confined to the natives of Australia." Some of them excelled others in its performance. The women beat