booming noise--"Bull-roarers" is the general white-fellows' name for
them. Amongst some native prisoners brought in from the Sturt I saw a
primitive wooden horn, on which a sort of blast could be blown. No doubt
this, too, has its place in their performances.

I am told they keep up these corroborees as long as three days and
nights, though certainly not dancing all the time. Probably the stick
clapping is kept up by relays of performers. I have heard the chant go on
all one night and well into the next day, with hardly a break.

Hall's Creek is a great place for corroborees, for there are gathered
together boys from all parts of Central Australia, Northern Territory,
and Queensland, brought by coastal overlanders. These boys all know
different chants and dances, and are consequently in great request at the
local black-fellows' evening parties. Warri told me he had learnt several
new songs; however, they appeared to my evidently untrained ear to be all
exactly alike.

We were to have had a very swell festival at Christmas, but it somehow
fell through. I fancy the blacks were not given sufficient notice.

The blacks, in addition to these simple festive gatherings, have solemn
dances for the purpose of promoting the growth of edible seeds and roots,
of increasing the rainfall, or the numbers of the animals and reptiles on
which they feed. But more important still are those connected with their
barbarous, but sacred, rites and ceremonials.