CHAPTER XXI.
Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.
-- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
Before I saw Australia I had never heard of the "weet-weet" at all.
I met but few men who had seen it thrown--at least I met but few who mentioned having seen it thrown.

Roughly described, it is a fat wooden cigar with its butt-end fastened to a flexible twig.

The whole thing is only a couple of feet long, and weighs less than two ounces.

This feather--so to call it--is not thrown through the air, but is flung with an underhanded throw and made to strike the ground a little way in front of the thrower; then it glances and makes a long skip; glances again, skips again, and again and again, like the flat stone which a boy sends skating over the water.

The water is smooth, and the stone has a good chance; so a strong man may make it travel fifty or seventy-five yards; but the weet-weet has no such good chance, for it strikes sand, grass, and earth in its course.