the stones arranged flat, the animal to be cooked is laid on them, and then covered with some green branches, over which is laid tea-tree bark, and the whole covered with sand. About two hours are sufficient, and as the juices and steam are all kept in, the product is not to be despised. On the inland rivers, or those flowing into the Gulf of Carpentaria, the natives' food appeared to be principally mussels and fish, the beds of the rivers being covered with old camps and great quantities of roasted mussel-shells, and the rivers and creeks being
FIG. 21. dammed with weirs, some very nicely built of stone.—(Fig. 21.) In the small water-holes the gins catch the fish by puddling the water up, and then sweeping the fish down with an oval net set in a cane frame and held between two of them. On the coast, at certain seasons, turtle are a favorite food, and at other seasons bivalves (Ostrea, Perna, and Cyrena) and univalves (Cerithium and Potamides) are obtained in great quantities, and of large size, from the mud flats and mangrove swamps. The inland tribes obtain kangaroos and opossums, &c., but these are rare on the coast. The coast scrubs contain great varieties of nuts and fruits; and generally the seeds of two water-lilies (Nelumbium and Nymphæa), the root of an arum, the nuts of a zamia or cycas, various yams and roots of different creepers, form their food. Several of the roots and nuts are poisonous, and require a long and tedious preparation, by maceration in water and filtering through the sand, the results being a tasteless starch."
Forbidden Food.
The natives have many very curious laws relating to food. The old men are privileged to eat every kind of food that it is lawful for any of their tribe to eat, but there are kinds of food which a tribe will eat in one district and which tribes in another part of the continent wiU not touch. The women may not eat of the flesh of certain animals; certain sorts of meat are prohibited to children and young persons; young married women are interdicted from partaking of dainties that delight the palates of older women; and men may not touch the flesh of some animals until a mystic ceremony has been duly celebrated. Their laws, indeed, in connection with hunting and fishing, and the collecting, cooking, and eating of food, are numerous and complex; and as the penalties believed to be incurred for a breach of these laws are, in most cases, serious diseases, or death, they are obeyed. Some suppose that cunning old men established the laws for the purpose of reserving to themselves those kinds of food which it was most difficult to procure, and that one effect of their prohibitions was to make the young men more expert in hunting; and it has been suggested that the eating of some animals was interdicted in order that the natural increase might not be prevented. In looking over the list of animals prohibited to young men, to women, and to children, one fails to see, however, any good reasons for the selection—unless we regard nearly the whole of the prohibitions as having their source in superstitious beliefs. A man, for instance, may not eat of the flesh of the animal that is the totem of his tribe; and he is forbidden to kill some others
