A race so uncivilised as the Australian natives has of course no written language. Still they are able to make themselves understood by a kind of sign language. Now and then the natives send information to other tribes, and this is done by the aid of figures scratched on a “ message stick “ made of wood, about four to seven inches long, and one inch wide. Some of them are flat, while others are round and about as thick as a man's finger; they often are painted in different colours. I myself saw one of these sticks which came to a native among my acquaintances on Herbert river. The man told me that he understood the inscription perfectly well, and he even prepared a similar stick, on which he wrote an answer. The message stick shown on page 304 is from Central Queensland. One side is meant to represent an enclosed piece of ground. There is a gate in the fence, and the dots mean grass and sheep. I am also fortunate in being able to give an illustration of another message stick (p. 304), with the interpretation of its inscription, which conveys a message from a black woman named Nowwanjung to her husband Carralinga of the Woongo tribe. Other message sticks are engraved with straight or circular lines in regular patterns as in embroidery; this has caused an entirely different view of their significance, which supposes them to be merely cards to identify the messenger. This view may be correct, but it is not corroborated by my experience on Herbert river.