a lock of hair, interwoven with some network, which he informed us, a fair, or rather a sable, damsel had hid; and it was the business of the enamoured swain to find it out, when he was rewarded for his assiduity by the favour of his mistress. If this be true, it shows that the aborigines of this place, if not more civilized, are, at all events, more romantic in their courtship than their brethren in the vicinity of Port Jackson, whose method is short and effectual; as they steal by ambush on the object of their affections, beat her senseless with a club, and then drag her off by the hair of the head, in triumph, to their own party.
The huts in this place are similar to those we noticed at Swan River, bearing an exact resemblance to a beehive cut vertically in two, with the convex side to that part most exposed to the wind and rain[1]. Perceiving several that were formed in the same manner as the others, but as if the hive (after being cut vertically) opened by a hinge, thus forming two, we learned from Mokărē, that these were the apartments of the married people; we observed they were placed at some distance from each other, and from the other habitations.
This evening Mokărē, whether instigated by others or of his own accord, entered into a serious remonstrance with me on the impropriety of travelling any farther, as we were a long way from home, and the
- ↑ The description of these habitations given by Vancouver, nearly half a century ago, coincides precisely with their appearance at the present day.
