Page:Life and Adventures of William Buckley.djvu/94

Rh fight I was very nearly killed by a boomerang, which split my shield in two. It appeared not to have been intended for me, but for my supposed brother-in-law. The man, in spite of my intercession, was punished very severely for having thrown it; for which, however, he professed great sorrow. Having been slightly wounded in the hand, and the blood flowing, the women came crying, and bound it up with a piece of rug, tying it round with opossum sinews. The next morning we went to the other side of the lake, where we remained many months.

Another halt—let me then make the best of it, by relating something more about the habits of my Aboriginal friends: the wild uncivilized inhabitants of the forest, the uncultivated children of nature; thousands of whom live unknown, and die unpitied.

All those I met with, excepting in times of war, or lamentation, I found to be particularly fond of what they consider music, although they have no kind of instrument except the skin rug, which, stretched from knee to knee, they beat upon, others keeping time with sticks. So passionately attached are they even to this noise, that they often commence in the night, one family setting them on, until at last they one and all become a very jolly set, keeping it up in one continual strain until daylight. I have often wished them and their enchanting enlivening strains on the other side of the Continent, with the queer old conjuror who manages the props already mentioned, to whom I must however avoid alluding more particularly.