hut in which I could lie down, perfectly secure from any rain.  The natives, of course, have much less difficulty in doing this, from their great skill and constant practice.  In many parts of New Holland that I have been in, bark is almost exclusively used by the natives, for their huts; where it can be procured good it is better than any thing else.  I have frequently seen sheets of bark twelve feet long, and eight or ten feet wide, without a single crack or flaw, in such cases one sheet would form a large and good hut; but even where it is of a far inferior description, it answers, by a little system in the arrangement, better than almost any thing else.  Projecting, or overhanging rocks, caverns, hollows of trees, etc. etc., are also frequently made use of by the natives for lodging houses in cold or wet weather.  When hostile parties are supposed to be in the neighbourhood, the natives are very cautious in selecting secret and retired places to sleep.  They go up on the high grounds, back among scrubs, or encamp in the hollows of watercourses, or where there are dense bushes of polygonum, or close belts of reeds; the fires are very small on these occasions, and sometimes none are made; you may thus have a large body of natives encamped very near you without being conscious of it.  I have been taken by a native to a camp of about twenty people in a dense belt of reeds, which I had gone close by without being aware of their presence, although I could not have been more than three or four yards from some of them when I passed.

It has already been remarked, that where many natives meet together, the arrangements of their respective huts depends upon the direction they have come from.  In their natural state many customs and restrictions exist, which are often broken through, when they congregate in the neighbourhood of European settlements.

Such is the custom requiring all boys and uninitiated young men to sleep at some distance from the huts of the adults, and to remove altogether away in the morning as soon as daylight dawns, and the natives begin to move about.  This is to prevent their seeing the women, some of whom may be menstruating; and if looked upon by the young males, it is supposed that dire results will follow.  Strangers are by another similar rule always required to get to their own proper place at the camp, by going behind and not in front of the huts.  In the same way, if young males meet a party of women going out to look for food, they are obliged to take a circuit to avoid going near them.  It is often amusing to witness the dilemma in which a young native finds himself when living with Europeans, and brought by them into a position at variance with his prejudices on this point.  All the buildings of the natives are necessarily from their habits of a very temporary character, seldom being intended for more than a few weeks’ occupation, and frequently only for a few days.  By this time food is likely to become scarce, or the immediate neighbourhood