pieces, and spitting them on a pointed stick. Other natives, attracted by the flaming signal of revelry, soon assemble in gay companies from all quarters: by night they dance and sing, and by day they eat and sleep, and the feast continues unchecked until they at last fairly eat their way into the whale, and may be seen climbing in and about the carcase choosing their favourite pieces. The fish, in a few days, becomes more disagreeable than ever, but still they will not leave it, until they have been completely gorged with it,--out of temper from indigestion, and therefore engaged in frequent quarrels. And, even when they are, at length, obliged to quit the feast, they carry off with them as much as they can stagger under, to eat upon the way, and to take as a rarity to their distant friends. Such is a true picture of a native Australian feast, and the polished sons and daughters of Europe will turn away from it with feelings of unmingled disgust. But, with how many of these is life itself a perpetual series of feasting, less gross and disgusting indeed, but not less really sensual than this! How many inhabitants of civilised countries live continually as though the saying, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die" were the whole sum and substance of practical wisdom! Yet if it were so, who would be more happy, who more blessed in his situation, than the savage devouring, day after day, the food his heart delights in? But a whale-feast is an event of no ordinary kind in the life of an inhabitant of the Bush, and, if we would know how the common sustenance of life is procured by him, we must follow him through a variety of scenes and pursuits, of which, by no means the least important or interesting, is the chase of the kangaroo.[47] This singular and harmless creature is now so well known to Europeans, from specimens that have been brought over and placed in our public collections of animals, and also from numberless pictures, that it would be waste of time to stop to describe it. In truth, being one of the productions peculiar to Australia, it may be said, from the figures of it to be seen upon the back of every book relating to that country, to have become almost the _kobong_ or crest of that southern region. In many portions of New Holland, particularly where the country is wooded and the soil tolerably fertile, kangaroos are very abundant; but so great havoc is made among these defenceless creatures by their various enemies, especially by man, that their numbers appear to be upon the decrease.[48] [47] The wild dog is also an object of chase, and its puppies are considered great dainties; but they are sometimes saved, in order to bring them up in a tame state, in which case they are taken by one of the elder females of the family, and actually reared up by her in all respects like one of her own children! [48] It is a saying among the natives, "Where white man sit down, kangaroo go away."