Where did
that family come from? I cannot tell. But we see, among the Aborigines of
Australia, customs resembling those of the African continent.'
Studying those customs, Sir George had been witness of the ancient rite
of circumcision, which also argued a higher civilisation. The blacks
built themselves, layer upon layer, into a human altar, and on it the
sacrifice was performed. Meanwhile a grunting noise, 'Ha-ha-ha,'
sonorous, even solemn, a savage mass, arose from the heap. Sir George
imagined that he was almost the first Englishman to behold this ceremony,
on the part of the Aborigines of Australia. To them it was religion;
whence did they get it? Their common rule Sir George found expressed as
an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but they had their lighter
moments. He discovered, in a lady savage, a humorous link between the
vanity of all womankind. There had been a native dance, and he was
leaving, when the chieftainess approached him with the request, 'Oh,
don't go away until you have seen my son dance; he will be beautiful!'
'I waited, of course,' Sir George consented, ever gallant, 'and the son
presented himself, daubed over with dirt of divers colours, and began to
hop about. He was well built, he danced cleverly, he cackled in his
finery, and his mother was hugely proud of him.
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