be reached, unless, before such migrations had extended thither, some families had traversed the continent by another path, and preoccupied the land. Rivers would be ascended, and their watersheds would become the hunting- ground of the hrst-comers. When the coast range was reached, if the country offered game in (|uantity the range would be crossed, and another watershed would gradually be occupied. Tribal feuds would interdict friendly inter- course, and diiferences of language would arise. In time the most barren and grudging wastes would know the foot of man, and he would extort from them the slender susten- ance they afforded. To imagine that he couhl do so by the mere exercise of animal faculties is not only to under-rate his capacity, but to place in a contemptible light the numerous explorers, who with firearms, implements, and civilized appliances have shown their heroism and perished in explorations. A strange fact puzzled all colonists as to tribal relations. The practice of circumcision was found to prevail io the north at the Gulf of Carpentaria, in the south at the east of St. Ymcent's Gulf, round the head of the Great Australian Bight; and, according to Mr. J. Forrest/^ among the tribes to the east and north of a line drawn from Port Culver on the south coast by Mounts Eagged, Jeramungup, and the Wongon Hilis, to the Geraldine mine on the Murchison river. Nowhere on the east coast was it in vogue, nor even in the teiTitory of Port Phillip, nor anj^where between Port Phillip and More ton Bay. Could it liave sprung up inde- pendently in two places divided by the whole depth of the continentV Tiie intervening tract was deemed impassable. Later years showed that it could easily be crossed when certain water supplies were known, and it is not hazardous to conclude that the tribes of South Australia are offshoots of ancestors who crossed the continent from north to south. Several tri[>es in the intervening interior were found to have preserved the custom of circumcision. It is still diflieult to explain why the rite, prevailing at the Gulf of Carpentaria, was not traditionally adhered to by
- " **The Handbook of Western Australia, l>v the Rev. C. O. Nicolay.
m Aathority. Perth: 18m
