The habits and customs of the aboriginal inhabitants are remarkably similar throughout the wide extent of Australia, and appear to have been equally characteristic of those of Van Diemen’s Land:  geological evidence also leads us to suppose that this island has not always been separated from the mainland by Bass Strait.  The resemblance of the natives of Van Diemen’s Land to those of Northern Australia seemed indeed so perfect that the first discoverers considered them “as well as the kangaroo, only stragglers from the more northern parts of the country;” and as they had no canoes fit to cross the sea, that New Holland, as it was then termed, “was nowhere divided into islands, as some had supposed.”

TEMPORARY HUTS.  MODE OF CLIMBING TREES.

Their mode of life, as exhibited in the temporary huts made of boughs, bark, or grass,* and of climbing trees to procure the opossum by cutting notches in the bark, alternately with each hand as they ascend, prevails not only from shore to shore in Australia but is so exactly similar in Van Diemen’s Land and at the same time so uncommon elsewhere that Tasman, the first discoverer of that island, concluded “that the natives either were of an extraordinary size, from the steps having been five feet asunder or THAT THEY HAD SOME METHOD which he could not conceive of climbing trees by the help of such steps.”  It is strong presumptive evidence therefore of the connection of the inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land with the race in Australia that a method of climbing trees, now so well known as peculiar to the natives of Australia, should have been equally characteristic of those of Tasmania.  The notches made in climbing trees are cut by means of a small stone hatchet and, as already observed, with each hand alternately.  By long practice a native can support himself with his toes on very small notches, not only in climbing but while he cuts other notches, necessary for his further ascent, with one hand, the other arm embracing the tree.  The elasticity and lightness of the simple handle of the mogo or stone hatchet employed (see Figure 5 above) are well adapted to the weight of the head and assist the blow necessary to cut the thick bark with an edge of stone.  As the natives live chiefly on the opossum, which they find in the hollow trunk or upper branches of tall trees and, as they never ascend by old notches but always cut new ones, such marks are very common in the woods; and on my journeys in the interior I knew, by their being in a recent state, when I was approaching a tribe; or when they were not quite recent how long it was since the natives had been in such parts of the woods; whether they had any iron hatchets or used still those of stone only; etc.