Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land, 1830-1840 - Page 27
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[Page 27]
and in a very neat manner. - one of these huts very much resembles a Bee hive, and is perhaps 15 or 16 feet in length, and about 12 feet in breadth. The door-way is about 2 feet in height, so that it is necessary to creep in on all fours, & I suppose that the object of the opening not being higher, must have been so contrived, to keep the wind out of the hut. From appearances, charcoal is burnt in the centre of the floor. Wells have are also found dug in the vicinity of such huts, - as fresh water is very scarce in many places on the Western coast - The natives did not live in the Same hut throughout the year, but had one for the summer, & another in the winter
season. The huts were also situated near places where shell-fish was known to be generally plentiful. The Western tribes, as well as those who ranged about Port Davy and the South Western coast, lived chiefly upon shell fish, and were little acquainted with hunting - the country in those directions affording only a scanty supply of game, and the ground itself almost impracticable. #
As a great number of armed parties were sent in quest of the hostile aboriginal tribes they became so harassed, they they avoided all their former haunts. - Bark huts were seldom seen, since the blacks sought the most inaccessible
[margin note]
# On the stationary [indecipherable] were [indecipherable] found an [indecipherable] of rude sketches, representing birds, beasts, human forms & for the most part tolerably well executed.-