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54
More Australian Tales

and at the big corroborees were seen the shells he had brought.

At length the Wundah or white devils came to live in the country, and the truth of the old tradition was proved by some black boys who went down from Gundablouie with cattle to Mulubinba.

There they saw the widely stretching water, with the white clouds on it. There they heard its booming roar. They were terrified, but one boy, more venturesome than the others, said:

"Let us taste it. If it is salt, then in truth this is like the water the old men tell us Wurrunnah saw." They tasted it. It was salt.

"It is true," they said, "that which they told us. We will tell them that we too have seen it, and have tasted it. And we will take back some of these wa-ah to wear at the corroborees." So back to the tribes they took the shells to prove their story.

One of those boys, the first who tasted the salt water, is an old man now. He it is who told me the story of Wurrunnah's trip to the sea.