Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/92

87 carefully preserved packet of kidney fat, which latter, according to their undoubted belief, is a talisman potent enough to keep nyambacootchala (devil) and all his attendant imps at more than arm's length. Besides that, which is considerable, a small portion rubbed over the bait previous to the hook being thrown into the water is a certain attraction to the scaley denizens of the river. After paddling against the stream for about four miles the canoes were brought up to the bank, when their occupants, ourselves included, joined the lyoors and wirtiwoos (children) on shore. As a matter of course the universal aboriginal habit, whenever they happen to stop, if only for a few minutes even, was followed here, so a fire was lighted, round which the masculine portion of our excursionists gathered themselves, and ere long the air became redolent with the fumes of the fragrant narcotic so dearly loved by all nations, even from the frigid to the torrid zone. There in idle ease they squatted on their haunches, or lolled in lazy attitudes, quizzing each other, or recounting marvels performed on other fishing expeditions, either by themselves or ancestors of generations long since passed away.

The lyoors and wirtiwoos were meanwhile all in the river, some of them on shallow shelving banks, digging away with their yamsticks most energetically, with the view to the exhumation of the great Murray lobster, whose delicate flesh was destined to tempt the voracious codfish, the brilliant golden perch and his silver-scaled congener, together with the ugly, but at the same time lusciously oleaginous catfish. Others, again, displayed their activity by diving into deeper water in search of mussels, which