“Baal bora ground been sit down along of Hinchinbrook, Lizzie?”

A “bora ground” is a particular place to which the blacks are in the habit of resorting at certain seasons of the year, to hold “corroborries” or dances, and also to perform divers mysterious rites on the young people of both sexes attaining the marriageable age.  What these solemnities really are, is but little known, and they seem to differ widely in each tribe.  In some, the young girls have a couple of front teeth knocked out; in others they lose a joint of the little finger; and at that time the hideous lumps with which the men embellish their bodies must be raised.  These curious ornaments are formed by cutting gashes in the flesh three-quarters of an inch long, and stuffing the wound with mud, which prevents the edges from adhering, and when the skin grows over, leaves a lump like an almond.  The number, proximity, and pattern of these adornments are according to the peculiar tastes of the family, and vary considerably, but the breast, back, shoulders, and arms are usually pretty thickly sown, giving the appearance of a number of fresh graves, placed close together in a black soil field.

[Illustration —­ “Native Australian.”]

Abiram’s question was one of those lucky inspirations that sometimes strike one, changing, as by magic, obscurity into distinctness, and pouring in a flood of light where no ray could be seen before.

“My word!” —­ cried Lizzie, her whole face lighting up with eagerness and joy —­ “my word, close up mine been forget.  Mine know one fellow bora ground, plenty black fellow sit down there, mine believe.  My word, plenty d—­d fooly me!”

We could see from the girl’s face that we were now on the right scent, and having ascertained that she could take us to the “bora ground” by the following evening, we finished our pipes, and lay down to sleep, thankful for what promised a possible solution of the mystery.

The Cleveland Bay party consisted of seven white men and two black boys, so we now mustered a strong force.  Lizzie would hardly allow us time to swallow our breakfast, so impatient was she to be under weigh; and one wretched man, lingering for a moment later than the rest of us, over a slice of beef and damper, found himself the object of general attention, when our little guide stamped her foot, and, trembling with indignation, said —­

“Plenty big bingey (belly) that fellow.  Baal he been fill ’em like ’it sundown!”

The travelling was worse than ever now; up and down steep ravines in which the tangled scrub grew so thickly that progress was almost impossible, and we were compelled to wade along the bed of the creek; now tripping over a sharp ledge of rock, now floundering up to the waistbelt in a treacherous hole; past the base of a beautiful waterfall, where the action of the torrent had worn a hollow basin in the rock, in which it sparkled, cool, transparent, and prismatic, in the rays of the burning sun, and where the view, so unlike the generality of Australian scenery, was perfectly bewitching; on, through more scrub, through swamps, and over stiff mountains, wet, draggled, moody, and cross, crawling along after the little black figure in front, that held steadily on its way, as though hunger and fatigue were to it things unknown.