NOTES AND ANECDOTES. 259 record events deemed worthy of note on their throwing-sticks.* I feel con- vinced that the powers of observation and of delineation in the Australian Aborigines will compare favorably with those of any other people who had no better opportunities for mental culture, or better materials for practising the art. The ancient Romans sometimes used the fine inner bark of such trees as the lime, ash, maple, or elm, as a substance for writing or drawing. It was called liber, and this word came permanently to be used for all kinds of books. The results of the various native schools which have been established in different parts of Australia from time to time will doubtless afford ample illustrations of the general intelligence of the Aboriginal children. It is said " that the native school at Coranderrk, on the Yarra, has gained the highest percentage of passes of any school in the colony of Victoria." I will now proceed to give some account of a native school which is perhaps not so well known as most of the other establishments for the Aborigines. I refer to that which formerly existed at King George's Sound. It was originated by the excellent and benevolent wife of the late Mr. Henry Camfield, Resident Magistrate at that place, and continued for many years under her care. The following trivial incident was the immediate cause of its origin. In June 1852, when I was residing at the Sound, the natives one day went off on a bush excursion, leaving Kojonotpat- a solitary, naked little girl, about three and a half years old — to wander about the settlement at Albany. She came to our gate for breakfast every morning, saying, " Me very hungry," and at length we mentioned the circumstance to Mrs. Camfield, our near neighbour, who took her in, and soon afterwards obtained the consent of her mother to keep her. Her father had been killed a short time before this. In 1858, Mrs. Camfield published a report of her school, from which I extract the following particulars. There were then eighteen children — thirteen girls and five boys — in the establishment ; the six elder girls being from ten to sixteen years of age. Every attention was paid to their comfort and cleanliness. The bigger girls were taught all useful domestic works — they washed, ironed, and mangled all the clothes of the institution ; baked, cooked and scrubbed, and made butter. The school routine did not extend beyond reading and writing and a little arithmetic. They read well, marking the stops, and could spell very correctly. In writing from dictation they seldom misspelt a word. Among the younger girls there was one bright-eyed intelligent Bessie, who aimed at excelling all the big girls, and repeated the collect and gospel on each Sunday as well as the best of them. She worked with her needle, too, almost as well as they did. She was a gentle, loving little girl, and was never happier than when she could get to sit by Missie (the pet word for Mistress), and insinuate her little hand in Missie's. Her younger sister was also a pleasing, promising child. One little boy, who was subject to fits, did not care to play with the other children, but would
- The Hebrews wrote on sticks (see Ezekiel xxxvii., 20), and so did the early Greeks ; the
laws of Solon were inscribed on billets of wood, and the Ancient Britons used to cut their alphabet on sticks. The use of sticks in keeping accounts has even remained in some country places in England to our own day.
