Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/117

112 The most patriarchal aborigine in the tribe is selected to act as umpire on these occasions, and, in the absence of timepieces, the twenty minutes' ordeal is either lengthened or curtailed by him, according to the amount of interest that he takes in the proceedings. In general the ordeal lasts a good long twenty minutes, to which the culprit could readily testify; as in most cases, he is on the very verge of fainting, by reason of the continued and violent exertion necessary upon those occasions, ere he gets notice that his penalty has been duly paid. When this good news reaches him, he, with much gladness, throws himself prone to the ground, panting and exhausted; thereupon one of the softer sex belonging to him—wife, sister, or ward—goes up to the prostrate and quivering ordealist, and forthwith proceeds to dry the fervid perspiration, with which his weary body is plentifully suffused, speaking such words of comfort to him the while as can only emanate from one of Eve's sympathising daughters.

Meanwhile the spectators have all dispersed by twos and threes to their usual avocations, commenting freely upon the bravery and expertness displayed by him who had successfuly [sic] undergone the supreme trial. 

CHAPTER XIV.

OF THE ABORIGINAL DOG. THE GREAT AFFECTION THE NATIVE WOMEN HAVE FOR THESE ANIMALS. HOW UTILISED. OF FLEAS AND OTHER PARASITES.

The only animal the aborigines possess in a state of domesticity is the indigenous dog—Canis familiaris