Page:Life and Adventures of William Buckley.djvu/117

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LIFE OF BUCKLEY.

they interfered with me, being now, and having been for a long time past, quite as expert as any of them with the spear, and boomerang. After a great deal of talk and noise, all became reconciled, and there was another Corrobberree on a large scale. A little before this affair, I had taken charge of a little blind boy, and a girl, children of my supposed brother-in-law, who were very much attached to me, and went with me in my hunting and fishing excursions.

I should here observe, that the natives sometimes, and when the wind is favourable, hunt round a kind of circle, into which they force every kind of animal and reptile to be found; they then fire the boundary, and so kill them for food; it matters not what they are, whether kangaroo, wombats, opossum, or black snakes; they are to them, with the exception of the last named, all alike; as are also lizards, toads, rats, mice, and wild dogs; they cook and eat them all. On one of these burning excursions, I remember a monster snake was killed, having two distinct heads, separating about two inches from the body, black on the back, with a brownish yellow belly, and red spots all over. It had been about nine feet long, but the fire had burnt the body in two, and being such an unnatural looking monster, the natives were terribly frightened at its appearance. Of the poisonous snakes generally, they are not the least afraid, for they eat them, after cutting off the heads, and roasting them in the usual manner.

With my adopted children, and two families only, I now went to a place they called Bearrock, where there