Troughs and stones for grinding seed were lying about, with broken spears and shields, but it was evident that the inhabitants were now dispersed in other places, and only assembled here to collect the box-tree seeds, for small boughs of that tree were lying in heaps on the ground, and the trees themselves bore the marks of having been stripped.

There were two or three huts in the village of large size, to each of which two smaller ones were attached, opening into its main apartment, but none of them had been left in such order as those I have already described.
It being the hour of sunset when we reached the well, the trees were crowded with birds of all kinds coming for water, and the reader may judge of the straits to which they were driven, when he learns that they dived down into so dark a chamber to procure the life-sustaining element it contained.

The wildest birds of the forest were here obliged to yield to the wants of nature at any risk, but notwithstanding, they were exceedingly wary; and we shot only a few cockatoos.

The fact of there being so large a well at this point, (a work that must have required the united labour of a powerful tribe to complete), assured us that this distant part of the interior, however useless and forbidding to civilized man, was not without inhabitants, but at the same time it plainly indicated, that water must be scarce.

Indeed, considering that the birds of the forest had powers of flight to go where they would, I could not but regard it as a most unfavourable sign, that so many had collected here.