Even the gum leaves are transmuted into silver as the moonlight laves them, making the blacks say the leaves laugh, and the shimmer is like a smile.
No wonder trees have such a place in the old religions of the world, and wirreenuns, even as do Buddhists, love to linger beneath their branches--the one holding converse with his spirit friends, the other cultivating the perfect peace.
There would not be much perfect peace about a wirreenun's communing with the spirits if it happened to be in mosquito time.

The blacks say a little grey-speckled bird rules the mosquitoes, and calls them from their swamp-homes to attack us.

In the mythological days this bird--a woman--was badly treated by a man who translated her sons to the sky; having revenged herself on him, she vowed vengeance on all men, and in the form of the mosquito bird wreaks that vengeance.

Her mosquito slaves have just the same spots on their wings as she has.
I dare say little with an air of finality about black people; I have lived too much with them for that.

To be positive, you should never spend more than six months in their neighbourhood; in fact, if you want to keep your anthropological ideas quite firm, it is safer to let the blacks remain in inland Australia while you stay a few thousand miles away.