A few days after my arrival at Herbert Vale, the natives were to undertake a hunt of the wallaby, and with two black companions I presented myself at the place where the hunt was to begin. We left home in the morning. The forenoon was devoted to hunting for small mammals, which during the daytime keep themselves concealed in the high trees. With kind words and tobacco I induced my blacks to climb up one immense gum-tree after the other.

The Australian black on the Herbert river was more skilful in climbing than any of the other natives I had seen up to this time. If he has to climb a high tree, he first goes into the scrub to fetch a piece of the Australian calamus {Calamus australis), which he partly bites, partly breaks off; he first bites on one side and breaks it down, then on the other side and breaks it upwards-one, two, three, and this tough whip is severed. At one end of it he makes a knot, the other he leaves as it is. This implement, which is usually sixteen to eighteen feet long, is called a kamin.

After wiping his hands in the grass so as to remove all moisture from perspiration, he takes the knot in his left hand, throws the kamin around the big tree-trunk, and tries to catch the other end with his right hand. When, after a couple of abortive efforts, he has succeeded in this, he winds this end a few times around the right arm and thus gets a secure hold.