The usual mode of cooking among the native tribes, is by throwing the food upon the fire to broil, or rather to get half-roasted, in which state it is eaten; or a native oven is made in the ground, similar to those in use among the New Zealanders, and throughout the Polynesian Archipelago.[63] The remarks made on the characteristic features and intellectual capacities of the aborigines, previously seen in the Bathurst district, equally apply to those now seen in this portion of the colony. I cannot consider them so degraded a race as they have been represented. Lesson, alluding to the Australian negro, says, “To judge by his external appearance and intellect, the native of New South Wales would seem to have been degraded from the true rank of man, and to approach the nature of the brute. “This race does not appear to differ in any thing essential from the Oceanic race, of which the Papuas alone form another somewhat distinct branch; they have a similarity of form and external character to the inhabitants of New Britain, New Ireland, and very probably those of New Caledonia. Poverty of soil and rigour of climate must have exerted an influence upon the race, and deteriorated it, and it is from this source that the slight differences arise, which seem to separate it from the African negro race, with which, however, an attentive examination shows it to be identical.” And he further observes, “it is probable that the negroes of New Holland have extended into the Australian continent, by New Guinea and the eastern islands, and that the migration has been made from the coast of Africa by the great island of Madagascar, which had itself, at a later period, received men of other races.” The races inhabiting, however, the land of New South Wales and Van Dieman’s Land or Tasmania, differ; the former, although possessing the African features, have straight hair, whilst those of the latter country are more closely allied to the Papuans. As far as regards their occasionally miserable appearance, (for many are the reverse in the interior,) it may be counted for by a dependence upon a precarious supply of food. Having no natural fruits, they subsist principally upon the produce of the chase, having nothing to induce them to cultivate the soil; they have no fixed habitations, and consequently no villages; the different tribes or families remove to those localities where game may abound, and as too long a stay in any situation would cause a scarcity of game, they seldom remain in one spot longer than three or four days. How different then they are, in respect to country and climate, from those races inhabiting the Polynesian Archipelago, who live in a luxuriant and fertile country, abounding in all the vegetables and fruits of tropical countries, as well as having hogs, fowls, &c.[64]