and I often perceived that greater benefit accrued from this mode of instruction than could have been produced by the most eloquent sermons."
On the point, however, of their secret superstitions, the natives maintained a reserve which he found almost impenetrable. Questions addressed on these subjects to the older men were turned off with a joke, or with a feint of not understanding their meaning, and natives of some thirty years of age would parry the inquiry by saying that they were too young to give an account of such matters. This experience of Father Salvado concerning the unwillingness of the natives to speak of their own superstitious beliefs might possibly explain an incident which caused us some perplexity. Two or three natives, at different times, gave us obscure scraps of information relative to a yearly feast held in honour of the evil spirit, and called on that account the "Jingy corobbery," but, with the exception of one colonist who was familiar with it, none of the white persons to whom we mentioned the feast would believe that it had any existence. They had lived in the colony all their lives, they said, and in constant intercourse with the natives, yet had heard of no such "corobbery," and, not unnaturally, they considered that our native friends had imposed upon us. We thought, however, that their description of the "Jingy" feast bore so much resemblance to what we had read of aboriginal customs on the eastern side of Australia that, though we did not attempt to set up our own short experience against that of older residents, we saw no reason for renouncing our private opinion that the "Jingy corobbery" was a fact. But to return to the thread of my narrative.
