nations, these barbarians are, happily, strangers. Captain Grey says, "I believe they have no idea that such a thing as a man's putting an end to his own life could ever occur; whenever I have questioned them on this point, they have invariably laughed at me, and treated my question as a joke." The period of old age must be as happy as any other time in the life of a savage, if not more so, since aged men are always treated with much respect, and rarely take an active part in any fray. They are allowed to marry young wives, and to watch them as jealously, and treat them as cruelly, as they please; and they appear to suffer less from weakness and disease than the aged amongst us usually endure. The old, too, are privileged to eat certain kinds of meat forbidden to the young. Thus Piper, a native, who accompanied Major Mitchell, would not eat the flesh of emu, even when food was scarce; but when he had undergone the ceremony of being rubbed over with the fat of that bird by an old man, he had thenceforth no objection to it. The threatened penalty was, that young men, after eating it, would be afflicted with sores all over the body; but the fact is, that it is too rich and oily for the old men to allow any but themselves to partake of it. So that, upon the whole, in New Holland, as in most other uncivilised countries, old age is a period of much dignity, and of considerable enjoyment of life. But, whatever may be the troubles, or whatever the enjoyments, of old age, they are, in their very nature, even above our other troubles or enjoyments, brief and transitory. The aged warrior of Australia can plead no exemption from the common lot of mortality, and death draws a veil over the chequered existence,--the faults and follies, the talents and virtues, of every child of Adam. The various customs and superstitions, connected with the death and burial of their friends, are very numerous among the tribes of Australia, and some of them are curious and peculiar. It would be impossible to give a full account of them, but a few of the most remarkable may be selected. Throughout all the funeral solemnities of savage and heathen nations the same distinguishing mark is to be observed,--they are the vain devices, the miserable inventions of men who sorrow for their departed friends as those that have no hope. Nothing, it is asserted, can awake in the breast more melancholy feelings than the funeral chants of the Australians. They are sung by a whole chorus of females of all ages, and the effect produced upon the bystanders by this wild music surpasses belief. The following is a chant, which has been heard upon several such occasions, and which, simple though it be, fully expresses the feelings of a benighted heathen mourning over the grave of a friend whom he has lost (as he thinks) for ever:--