“King John, chief of the great Adelaide tribe, after reigning many years to the satisfaction of his numerous subjects, was taken ill and died. His body was not buried as would have been the fate of a common body, but disembowelled, thoroughly washed, and trussed like a fowl. Then a triangle was erected like that of a gipsey’s fire, and from it he was reverently suspended. Over all a tabernacle was made of green boughs and grass, something in the shape of a beehive. Beneath the venerated remains thus shrouded, a slow fire was kindled--so slow as to burn three weeks and not consume the body, against which calamity every precaution was taken by watching day and night. “Meanwhile the subjects of the deceased monarch assembled, each one bearing in his hand a shell, and crowding round the enclosure where the body was roasting. Then followed a ceremony much too horrid for detail. It shall only be hinted at. Like all animal bodies subjected to the action of fire ... the saucer-like shells that were held beneath ... with which every subject anointed the tip of his tongue! “Well, when the body had been duly smoked, and as far as possible mummied, the king’s dutiful _lubras_ took it down, wrapped it up carefully, and for three months, by means of relief squads, carried it to and fro through the entire length and breadth of the defunct king’s domains. The bounds having thus been beaten they return to head-quarters, and there having selected a gum-tree, proper and tall, they set the old man gently and firmly in a fork of the topmost bough. But he might get cold, for they don’t believe in his death while his body is to be seen, so they build over him a little tent of twigs and grass, and then leave him to his fate.” In an earlier part of Mr. Jessop’s hook (Sturtland and Flindersland) mention is made of a certain “King John,” the proprietor of a skull of marvellous thickness, which was deposited as a natural curiosity in the “office” at the Sturtland station. Whether there were two monarchs of the same name, or this was the veritable skull of the king of Adelaide fallen from its nest in the gum-tree is not known, though as the latter monarch was renowned for shrewdness and intelligence, it is probable that the thick skull belonged to him. “Of his prowess and the difficulties of his position,” writes Mr. Jessop, “his skull is a lasting monument, more durable than brass or stone,” graven by art or man’s device. “Upon it I counted fourteen cavities, in each of which a marble would rest, all dents made by the waddies or clubs of enemies whom he had encountered.”