Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/123

118 monkeys for a similar purpose; still with all that, the poor natives continue persistently to scratch, which indubitably induces a creepy feeling of disgust to any cleanly inclined beholder. These indigenous parasites could be borne by the aborigines pretty well as ever successive singeing afforded some measure of respite; the fleas, however, are quite beyond their patience, as respite from them there is none, and they cannot lessen their numbers do whatsoever they may towards that end. Their numberless dogs provide the very best of breeding grounds, and their opossum cloaks afford them harbour which cannot be excelled. 

CHAPTER XV.

TREATING OF THEIR GEOGRAPHICAL AND ASTRONOMICAL THEORIES. OF THE SEASONS. THEIR METHOD OF MARKING TIME. THEIR HAZINESS IN COMPUTING NUMBERS. THEIR UTTER WANT OF COMPARISON.

The ideas possessed by the aborigines are both crude and vague in the extreme.

They imagine the earth to be one vast plain without limit, covered with forests in certain localities, whilst others are destitute of timber; mountain ranges here and there, sometimes continuous, and in other places isolated, with solitary hills dotted about, showing former encampments of the Ngoudenout. These, together with occasional rivers, creeks, springs, and lakes, when all summed up together, is about the extent of aboriginal geographical knowledge. 