Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/32

27 region such as the Mallee Scrub), is to a great extent the cause of this unnatural crime. In the winter time they make a common habit of trailing through the Mallee Scrub for hundreds of miles. They are extremely partial to these rambles, as they can be done with the utmost impunity—that is, they have no fear of meeting with hostile tribes during such journeyings, and even although they have difficulty enough at these times in procuring a sufficiency of food, still they like the vast and arid desert, because of the immunity they enjoy there from the everlasting bodily terror which continually preys upon their spirits in less remote districts, keeping them awake at night, or colouring their dreams with no pleasant lines, when "tired nature's sweet restorer" weighs down their eyelids. In the very barrenest portion of the barren Mallee Scrub there is a considerable depression or dry lake, distant from the Murray River about eight miles. The bottom of this lake is composed of a bright red ochre, which the natives use in large quantities in the ornamentation of their own bodies, and decorating their opossum cloaks as well. To procure this paint the tribes nearest thereto make yearly journeys to the lake, and in doing so frequently undergo serious privations by reason of the scarcity of food and water on the way. They take a supply of water with them in bags formed of wallaby skins, but as it takes them ten days or more to make the journey both ways and prepare the paint, their water supply usually runs short long before they return to their starting point. When this occurs they resort to the root of a peculiar kind of mallee, which they call weir, from whence they obtain a supply of sweet and limpid water,