Page:The aborigines of Australia.djvu/134

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ABORIGINAL ART.
121

panions. Thwarted thus in his meditated revenge, he departed in a sulky and angry mood, and did not again for some time make his appearance among the whites.

The indications of the presence of art among the aborigines have before been referred to. As, however, these indications have been observed in a marked degree among the tribes which are now more particularly treated of, it may not be out of place to recur to the subject. A primitive gallery of sculpture, discovered by voyagers on the northern coast of the country, has previously been minutely described. The existence of similar objects of curiosity in the neighbourhood of Port Jackson is mentioned in the journals of some of the early voyagers. They consist of carvings, executed with more or less skill on the smooth surface of large rocks — flint, shell, or bone principally forming the implement substituted for a chisel. The figures generally represented were animals, weapons of different descriptions, men in various attitudes, fish, and serpents. The writer has been given to understand that one of these sculptured rocks is at the present day to be seen on the shores of Port Jackson, in the neighbourhood of Middle Head. In the consideration of this point the mind is forcibly struck by one of those links which would seem to connect the aborigines of Australia with those of America, and which go so far to support the theory which claims a common origin for these people. The following passage from Catlings "Travels among the North