half inches long, crossing diagonally, serves as a handle, and when used, the end rests against the palm of the right hand, the three last fingers grasp the stick, and the forefinger and thumb loosely retain the spear.  With the aid of the powerful leverage of the throwing-stick a spear can be thrown to a distance varying according to its weight from 30 to 80 yards, and with considerable precision; still, if observed coming, it may easily be avoided.

The only other weapon which I have seen in Torres Strait is a peculiar kind of club procured from New Guinea, consisting of a quoit-like disk of hard stone (quartz, basalt, or serpentine) with a sharp edge, and a hole in the centre to receive one end of a long wooden handle.

The huts which the Kowraregas and Cape York people put up when the rains commence are usually dome-shaped, four to six feet high, constructed of an arched framework of flexible sticks, one end of each of which is stuck firmly in the ground, and over this sheets of tea-tree (Melaleuca) bark—­and sometimes an additional thatch of grass—­are placed until it is rendered perfectly watertight.

Petticoats and fishing gear.

Not only at Cape York but throughout Torres Strait the males use no clothing or covering of any kind.  At Cape York and the Prince of Wales Islands grown up females usually wear a covering in front, consisting of a tuft of long grass, or flag (Philydrum lanuginosum) or split pandanus leaves, either hanging loosely or passed between the legs and tied to another behind; over this a short petticoat of fine shreds of pandanus leaf, the ends worked into a waistband, is sometimes put on, especially by the young girls, and when about to engage in dancing.  This petticoat, varying only in the materials from which it is made, is in general use among the females of all the Torres Strait tribes except the Kowrarega, and much labour is often expended upon its construction.  The large mats used as sails, also for sleeping under in wet weather, are made by the women from the fallen leaves of the pandanus—­the common basket from the rush-like leaves of Xerotes banksii ? —­and the water basket from the sheath of the leaf of the Seaforthia palm.

The food of these blacks varies with the season of the year, and the supply is irregular and often precarious.  Shellfish and fish are alone obtainable all the year round—­collecting the former is exclusively a female occupation, but fishing is chiefly practised by the men.  Fish are either killed with a plain pointed spear, often merely a stick sharpened at the end, or are taken in deep water with the hook and line.  Their hooks are made of a strip of tortoise-shell so much curved as to form three-fourths of a circle, but from their shape and the absence of a barb they cannot be so effective as those of European make:  indeed these last were at Cape York preferred by the natives themselves.  The line is neatly made from the tough fibres of the rattan, which are first scraped to the requisite degree of fineness with a sharp-edged Cyrena shell, then twisted and laid up in three strands.