be traced to the nature of the woods of the country, which with hardly an exception, are nearly as hard as whin-stone, and not very inflammable either, so that no amount of manual friction could possibly ignite them. Hence his fire, however he first obtained it, like that of Vesta, was never suffered to die out, it being the province of the women to keep it constantly supplied with fuel when the tribe was stationary, and to preserve it when on the move, by bark torches renewed as required. That he had his own ideas, not very perfect ones, of a good and evil spirit, and believed also that absolute annihilation did not occur with death, we have already seen. He, perhaps, did not reflect much on these subjects, but then he was quite uninstructed, and no state of isolation could have been more complete than his own; so that knowledge of any kind from sources outside his island home never reached him. But when once taught, there never was a people, according to Robinson, who more readily received instruction, or were more eager for it than the savages of Tasmania. School learning was acquired rapidly by them, even the adults. Scriptural truth was taught them both by their protector and a catechist specially appointed to instruct them, and they seem to have understood it, and for a short time it may be said of them, in the language of a sacred writer that they "saw it and considered it well, they looked upon it and received instruction." But of their capacity for civilisation, as explained by Robinson, I shall speak by-and-by.
In stature some of them were tall, and a few were robust; but the most of them were slimly-built persons, wiry and very agile. The features of neither sex were prepossessing, especially after they had passed middle age. Their noses were broad, and their mouths generally protruded extremely. In youth, some of the women were passably good-looking, but not so the most of them; and only one of the many I have seen—the wife of a chief—was handsome. The women however appeared to great disadvantage, by their fashion of shaving the head quite closely, which in their wild state was done with flints and shells, and afterwards with glass, when they could get it. The men, on the contrary, allowed their natural head covering, wool, to grow very long, and plastered it all over very thickly with a composition of red ochre and grease, and when it dried a little their locks hung down so as to resemble a bundle of painted ropes, the red powder from which falling over their bodies (which were naturally a dull black colour), gave the naked savage a most repulsive look.
The shoulders and breasts were marked by lines of short, raised scars, caused by cutting through the skin and rubbing in charcoal. These cuts somewhat resemble the marks made by a
