would have been made from time to time as they advanced, so as to overspread and people by degrees the whole country round their respective lines of march.  Each offset appearing to retain fewer or more of the original habits, customs, etc. of the parent tribe in proportion to the distance traversed, or its isolated position, with regard to communication with the tribes occupying the main line of route of its original division; modified also, perhaps, in some degree, by the local circumstances of the country through which it may have spread.

Commencing with the parent tribe, located as I have supposed, first upon the north-west coast, we find, from the testimony of Captain Flinders and Dampier, that the male natives of that part of the country, have two front teeth of the upper jaw knocked out at the age of puberty, and that they also undergo the rite of circumcision; but it does not appear that any examination was made with sufficient closeness to ascertain, whether [Note 98:  Vide Note 78.] any other ceremony was conjoined with that of circumcision.  How far these ceremonies extend along the north-western or western coasts we have no direct evidence, but at Swan River, King George’s Sound, and Cape Arid, both customs are completely lost, and for the whole of the distance intervening between these places, and extending fully six hundred miles in straight line along the coast, the same language is so far spoken, that a native of King George’s Sound, who accompanied me when travelling from one point to the other, could easily understand, and speak to any natives we met with.  This is, however, an unusual case, nor indeed am I aware that there is any other part of Australia where the same dialect continues to be spoken by the Aborigines, with so little variation, for so great a distance, as in the colony of Western Australia.

Following round the southern coast easterly, the head of the Great Bight is the first point at which any great change appears to occur, and even here it is less in the character, language, and weapons of the natives, than in their ceremonial observances.  For the first time the rite of circumcision is observed, and conjoined with it the still more extraordinary practice to which I have before alluded.  The ceremony of knocking out the two upper front teeth of boys arrived at the age of puberty, is not, however, adopted.  We have already noticed, that for six hundred miles to the west and north-west from the Great Bight, circumcision is unknown.  The tribes, therefore, who practise it, cannot have come from that direction, neither are they likely to have come from the eastward, for after crossing the head of the Port Lincoln peninsula, and descending towards Adelaide, we find the rite of circumcision alone is practised, without any other ceremony in connection with it.  Now, in a change of habits or customs, originating in the wandering, unsettled life of savages, it is very likely, that many of their original customs may gradually be dropped