Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/121

116 aborigines' bete noir), when hunting is out of the question and other sources of food unobtainable, unless by the exercise of much labour and exposure, these dingoes are converted into food, and really when cooked in one of their ovens these dishes of dog are tempting enough to look at, and there is small doubt about their tasting well, that is of course reasoning from the gusto with which the natives consume them; we, however, never had sufficient courage to partake of this dog meat, but we have seen plenty of it taken out of the ovens, which we must say always looked as white and delicate as any chicken.

A puppy dingo when in good condition is esteemed quite a luxury, therefore an aborigine having such a dish for dinner fancies that he is faring most sumptuously. It is not by any means an uncommon thing for a galour to have as many as two dozen dogs, and it is certainly a variety to find one possessing fewer in number than half a dozen. It can thus, from this fact, be easily imagined what enormous dimensions the packs assume when all the members of a tribe are assembled in one camp. On those occasions the numbers are far beyond the belief of people unaccustomed to the habits of the aborigines, and as their owners never by any chance think of providing them with food, as a natural consequence they fall foul of any sheep or weak calves with which they may come in contact, thus entailing endless feuds between the squatter and the galours of the tribe.

When a tribe is encamped close to a station these packs of dogs are an endless plague, for besides the injury which they invariably inflict upon the flocks in the vicinity, they