On repairing to the place soon after daylight, we found the natives sleeping in small detached parties; and it was not until the sun had shown himself that any of them began to stir.  We observed that the people from the north shore slept by themselves, and the boys, though we heard they were not to be moved, were lying also by themselves at some little distance from the Yoo-lahng.  Towards this, soon after sunrise, the carrahdis and their party advanced in quick movement, one after the other, shouting as they entered, and running twice or thrice round it.  The boys were then brought to the Yoo-lahng, hanging their heads and clasping their hands.  On their being seated in this manner, the ceremonies began, the principal performers in which appeared to be about twenty in number, and all of the tribe of Cammeray.

The exhibitions now performed were numerous and various; but all of them in their tendency pointed toward the boys, and had some allusion to the principal act of the day, which was to be the concluding scene of it.  The ceremony will be found pretty accurately represented in the annexed Engravings. [The HTML version of this ebook contains the engravings.  Ed.]

No. 1 Represents the young men, fifteen in number, seated at the head of the Yoo-lahng, while those who were to be the operators paraded several times round it, running upon their hands and feet, and imitating the dogs of the country.  Their dress was adapted to this purpose; the wooden sword, stuck in the hinder part of the girdle which they wore round the waist, did not, when they were crawling on all fours, look much unlike the tail of a dog curled over his back.  Every time they passed the place where the boys were seated, they threw up the sand and dust on them with their hands and their feet.  During this ceremony the boys sat perfectly still and silent, never once moving themselves from the position in which they were placed, nor seeming in the least to notice the ridiculous appearance of the carrahdis and their associates.

We understood that by this ceremony power over the dog was given to them, and that it endowed them with whatever good or beneficial qualities that animal might possess.

The dogs of this country are of the jackal species; they never bark; are of two colours, the one red with some white about it; the other quite black.  They have an invincible predilection for poultry, which the severest beatings could never repress.  Some of them are very handsome.

No. 2 Represents the young men seated as before.  The first figure in the plate is a stout robust native, carrying on his shoulders a pat-ta-go-rang or kangaroo made of grass; the second is carrying a load of brush-wood.  The other figures, seated about, are singing, and beating time to the steps of the two loaded men, who appeared as if they were almost unable to move under the weight of the burthen which they carried on their shoulders.  Halting every now and then, and limping, they at last deposited their load at the feet of the young men, and retired from the Yoo-lahng as if they were excessively fatigued by what they had done.  It must be noticed, that the man who carried the brush-wood had thrust one or two flowering shrubs through the septum nasi.  He exhibited an extraordinary appearance in this scene.