jersey, which was quite good enough to have excited a white man's envy; but we found that the natives have a law amongst themselves, so stringently compelling them to share their individual possessions with each other, that no one appears long to retain personal ownership of any present that has been made to him.
It is scarcely possible to imagine a stronger exemplification of that community of goods which distinguished the early Christian church, when "neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own," than exists amongst these savages, only with this difference, that the self-abnegation instead of being voluntary is produced by compulsion. If, for instance, we gave food to a native whilst others of his tribe were hanging about the house, he considered that we doubled the favour by contriving an opportunity for him to eat unseen, as otherwise he must of necessity share his dinner with the lookers-on. This law is especially binding with respect to strangers of another tribe, with whom, if friendliness is to be maintained, a native is bound to make an exchange of property however greatly to his own disadvantage. The same article, therefore, is at different times owned by a great variety of persons, as a proof of which I may mention that during our residence in the colony an exploring party found a tin, which had once contained preserved meat, in possession of some natives who had never before seen a white man.
All the better class of colonists in the bush have their favourite natives, who, in return for old clothes and food, which principally consists of flour, will consent to act as cleaners of pots and pans, as well as hewers of wood and
