State Library of NSW
[Page 31] and after constructing their rude bark huts at some distance from each other, each little family, which seldom exceeded four in number, would set about making a small fire in front of the hut; upon this they would throw the game they had obtained during the day's hunt, - generally Kangaroo or opossum, and so soon as it was about half boiled, they would devour it with a most voracious appetite. They eat far more than an European, and afterwards inflate themselves with large quantities of water. - It was always an easy matter at a very long distance to distinguish the fires of the blacks from those of a white party - the smoke from the former would ascend in many separate small and faint columns, whereas that from the latter would rise in one steady and large column discernible afar off. Notwithstanding that their fires were so small, and the night so cold, the natives experienced very little annoyance from cold or damp, although they were mostly naked.
The aborigines of Van Diemen's Land have by the earlier navigators been represented as the most stupid race in the world, but a little superior to the brute creation, but as we pro-
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