Soon I heard the voices of the
angels, native black and fallen angels, and their smokes came
gradually nearer. I thought they must have seen me on the top of the
rocks, and desired to make my further acquaintance. The advancing
party, however, turned out to be only two women coming for water to
the well. They had vessels, usually called coolamins--these are small
wooden troughs, though sometimes made of bark, and are shaped like
miniature canoes--for carrying water to their encampment. When they
came near enough to see what I was, they ran away a short distance,
then stopped, turned round, and looked at me. Of course I gave a
gentle bow, as to something quite uncommon; a man may bend his lowest
in a desert to a woman. I also made signs for them to come to the
well, but they dropped their bark coolamins and walked smartly off. I
picked up these things, and found them to be of a most original, or
rather aboriginal, construction. They were made of small sheets of the
yellow-tree bark, tied up at the ends with bark-string, thus forming
small troughs. When filled, some grass or leaves are put on top of the
water to prevent it slopping over. The women carry these troughs on
their heads. I was not near enough to distinguish whether the women
were beautiful or not; all I could make out was that one was young and
fatter than the other.
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