The labours are sometimes tedious, and the suffering attending them severe; the presentations are generally natural; when preternatural labours occur, in most, if not in all such cases, they prove fatal for want of assistance.[49] After the delivery of the woman a belt of opossum skin, called “_Cumeel_” (similar to that worn by the males, when adults) is placed around the abdomen, and is removed after being kept on from twenty-four to forty-eight hours; the day after delivery the woman goes to the river for the purpose of ablution. Similar to most native tribes, the females are married at a very early age. I saw one in the Tumat country, whom I regarded as a mere child, and was surprised on being told that she had been married for eight months. At “_Dabee_” I had an opportunity of viewing the native animal, called Koala or Cola,[50] and it immediately occurred to me (this being the first living specimen I had seen) how inaccurately the published representations of the animal were delineated, being probably, like most of the drawings of Australian animals, as well as many of other countries, taken from stuffed instead of recent specimens. The very peculiar droll-looking physiognomy of this little beast was entirely lost in the _mis_-representation. This animal, the _Phascolartos_ genus of Blainville, was a young specimen, and covered over the body with a fine grey fur, having a reddish tinge, no tail, ears short and erect, and covered with thick long fur of a light greyish colour, eyes small, iredes brown, nose naked and pointed, upper lip divided, upper jaw projecting over the lower, hind feet like the opossum, the thumb wanting the nail. This animal laps when drinking, like a dog, and is very fond of milk; it uses the fore-feet in laying hold of the branches when eating the young leaves of the gum trees, (_Eucalypti_). This specimen was a male, and the noise it uttered was a peculiar soft barking sound. It sleeps during the day, running about to feed at night, but when roused will also feed during the day in its present state of confinement. From many circumstances that have occurred, there is some reason to think that the aborigines of this country believe in the metempsychosis of the departure of the soul of their brethren into the bodies of certain animals; but as the notes I collected did not satisfy my mind, so as to assert this as a positive fact, I mention it, for others to procure information on the subject. That something like it exists, appears in some degree certain. In one instance, a native, at Béran plains, desired a European not to kill a _Gúnar_ which he was then chasing, but to catch it alive as it was “him brother.” The animal, however, was killed, at which the native was much displeased, and would not eat any of it, but unceasingly complained of the “tumbling down him brother.” CHAPTER VI.