Thinking that some large and now extinct beast might have lived in Australia, which might have been traditionally known to the aborigines, scientific men have taken particular pains to ransack those portions of the country which they could reach, in hopes of finding remains which might be to Australia what those of the megatherium and other huge monsters are to the Old World. Nothing of the kind has, however, been found. Some very large bones were once discovered on the banks of a shallow salt lagoon (just the place for the bunyip), but when sent to the British Museum they were at once found to be the remains of a gigantic kangaroo. At present, the legend of the bunyip stands on a level with that of the kraken--every native believes it, some aver that they have seen it, but no one has ever discovered the least tangible proof of its existence. To these evil spirits the natives attribute every illness or misfortune, and in consequence are anxious to avoid or drive them away. All meteors are reckoned by them among the evil spirits, and are fancifully thought to be ghosts which multiply by self-division. The aborigines think, however, that by breathing as loudly as they can, and repeating some cabalistic words, they disarm the demons of their power. They have one very curious belief,--namely, that any one who ventured to sleep on the grave of a deceased person, he would ever afterward be freed from the power of evil spirits. The ordeal is, however, so terrible that very few summon up sufficient courage to face it. “During that awful sleep the spirit of the deceased would visit him, seize him by the throat, and, opening him, take out his bowels, which it would afterward replace, and close up the wound! Such as are hardy enough to go through this terrible ordeal--encounter the darkness of the night and the solemnity of the grave--are thenceforth ‘koradjee’ men, or priests, and practise sorcery and incantations upon the others of their tribe.” In Southern Australia, the natives believe that the sun and moon are human beings, who once inhabited the earth. The planets are dogs belonging to the moon, who run about her; and the various constellations are groups of children. An eclipse of either the sun or moon is looked upon as a terrible calamity, being sure to be the forerunner of disease and death. All burial-places of the dead are held as liable to be haunted by evil spirits, and are therefore avoided. Promontories, especially those which have rocky headlands, are also considered as sacred; and it is probably on account of that idea that the skull monuments, mentioned on page 773, are raised.