This novel weapon became an intensely interesting object to me very soon after arriving in Australia; and for the purpose of studying it, I went persistently among the black fellows, whose friendship I cultivated in different ways, and so succeeded eventually in learning how to make and throw the boomerang. So far, well and good; but of its history I could learn nothing. Of the origin of the crooked stick there is no knowledge; one can only conjecture. It is possible it may have been born with the race itself from the accidental throwing of a flat stick; for from childhood the black fellow shows a natural bent for throwing things, as you can see by watching him use his only other weapons, the spear and club. The bow and arrow, so common in other lands, is not used, except in the extreme northern portion of the great island continent, where there is a mixture of the race with the Papuan of New Guinea.