Nowadays one may live among the Victorian forests and never even see a black fellow, but the names that he has given mountain, district, and river still remain, like a mocking echo of his voice. The Barambogie, the Buckrabanyule, the Barramboot, the Bulla-Bulla, the Keil-warra, the Koorooyugh among the mountains; the Benambra Creek, the Marraboor, the Kororoit, the Kiewa, the Toonginbooka, and the Wonnangatta among the rivers; the Durdidwarrah, the Corangamite, the Koreetnung, and the Turang-moroke among the lakes, being a few of the soft-syllabled words which rise at random to my mind as I write, while from river bank, mountain, and forest, that the Black Fellow has thus christened, out of the tangled scrub and down from the tall gum-trees, peer the bright-eyed wistful Bush beasts, as if wondering why the world has so changed, leaving them there still unaltered, the very flotsam of time. Even now, by good fortune, we may still come across the remains of some of the forest sanctuaries of the aborigines, breaking through the wall of forest trees which surrounds them, and stepping into their silent places with a sudden sense of intensest pity for a dying race, and awe and reverence for a life and faith of which we can have no true conception. In some parts of Australia, more particularly in Northern Queensland, these are to be found, in the very heart of the Bush—surrounded by high walls, of dense forest growth—curious circular clearings, too completely denuded of undergrowth and too symmetrical in shape to be for one moment regarded as merely accidental. These are the ancient “bora,” or “corroboree,” grounds of the aborigines, formed, for the most part, long before Captain Cook—or any other white man—set foot in the continent, though to this day the remnants of the dying race meet there periodically to conduct their most important ceremonies and hold their most solemn parliaments—or, to use a more precise word, conclaves, for mere speech occupies a far more restrained and less important place in such meetings than it does in the political discussions of the whites. These clearings have been in existence for so long that even the very oldest among the aboriginals has never even heard of their beginnings; and though apparently they can always be easily located, no regular cut track is found to lead to them. To this day they are kept absolutely clear, save in an instance where all those people whose sanctuaries they represent have died out or been hopelessly scattered—and it is another example of the resourcefulness and industry of the black fellow—when any of his cherished beliefs are at stake—that he should have been able so successfully to grapple with all the quick-springing mass of undergrowth which leaps to life, almost in a night, in such places.