VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Having now brought to a close the narrative of my explorations in 1840-1, it may not be out of place to take a brief and cursory review of the whole, and to state generally what have been the results effected. In making this summary, I have no important rivers to enumerate, no fertile regions to point out for the future spread of colonization and civilization, or no noble ranges to describe from which are washed the debris that might form a rich and fertile district beneath them; on the contrary, all has been arid and barren in the extreme.
Such, indeed, has been the sterile and desolate character of the wilderness I have traversed, and so great have been the difficulties thereby entailed upon me, that throughout by far the greater portion of it, I have never been able to delay a moment in my route, or to deviate in any way from the line I was pursuing, to reconnoitre or examine what may haply be beyond. Even in the latter part of my travels, when within the colony of Western Australia, and when the occasionally meeting with tracts of a better soil, or with watercourses appearing to have an outlet to the ocean, rendered the country one of much greater interest, I was quite unable, from the circumstances under which I was placed, the reduced and worn-out state of my horses, and the solitary manner in which I was travelling, ever to deviate from my direct line of route, either to examine more satisfactorily the character of the country, or to determine whether the watercourses, some of which occasionally bore the character of rivers (though of only short course), had embouchures opening to the sea or not.
In a geographical point of view, I would hope the result of my labours has not been either uninteresting, or incommensurate with the nature of the expedition placed under my command, and the character of the country I had to explore. By including in the summary I am now making, the journeys I undertook in 1839, as well as those of 1840-1 (for a considerable portion of the country then examined was recrossed by the Northern Expedition), it will be seen that I have discovered and examined a tract of country to the north of Adelaide, which was previously unknown, of about 270 miles in length, extending between the parallels of 33 degrees 40 minutes and 29 degrees S. latitude. In longitude, that part of my route which was before unknown, extends between the parallels of 138 degrees E., and 118 degrees 40 minutes E., or about 1060 miles of direct distance. These being connected with the previously known portions of South-western, South-eastern, and part of Southern Australia, complete the examination of the whole of the south line of the coast of this continent. Indeed, I have myself (at various times) crossed over the whole of this distance from east to west, from Sydney to Swan River. In the early part of the Expedition, 1840, the continuation of Flinders range, from Mount Arden, was traced and laid down to its termination, near the parallel of 29 degrees S. It was ascertained to be hemmed in by an impassable barrier, consisting of the basin of an immense lake, which I named Lake Torrens, and which, commencing from the head of Spencer's Gulf, increased in width as it swept to the north-west, but subsequently bent round again to the north-east, east and south-east, in correspondence with the trend of Flinders range, the northern extremity of which it completely surrounded in the form of a horse-shoe. The shores of this lake I visited to the westward of Flinders range, at three different points, from eighty to ninety miles apart from each other, and on all these occasions I found the basin to consist, as far as I could penetrate, of a mass of mud and sand, coated on the surface with a crust of salt, but having water mixed with it beneath. At the most north-westerly point attained by me, water was found in an arm of the main lake, about two feet deep, clear, and salt as the sea; it did not extend, however, more than two or three hundred yards, nor did it continue to the bed of the main lake, which appeared, from a rise that I ascended near the arm, to be of the same character and consistency as before. The whole course of the lake, to the farthest point visited by me, was bounded by a steep, continuous, sandy ridge, exactly like a sea-shore ridge; those parts of its course to the north, and to the east of Flinders range, which I did not go down to, were seen and laid down from various heights in that mountain chain. Altogether, the outline of this extraordinary feature, as thus observed and traced, could not have extended over a circuit of less than 400 miles.
It is singular enough that all the springs found near the termination of Flinders range should have been salt, and that these were very nearly in the same latitude in which Captain Sturt had found brine springs in the bed of the Darling in 1829, although our two positions were so far separated in longitude. My furthest position to the north-west was also in about the same latitude, as the most inland point gained by any previous exploring party, viz. that of Sir Thomas Mitchell's in 1832, about the parallel of 149 degrees E. longitude; but by my being about 600 miles more to the westward, I was consequently much nearer to the centre of New Holland. It is, to say the least, remarkable that from both our positions, so far apart as they are, the country should present the same low and sterile aspect to the west and north-west. Since my return from the expedition, a party has been sent out under Captain Frome, the Surveyor-General, in South Australia, to examine the south-east extremity of Lake Torrens; the following is the report made by that officer upon his return.
"The most northern point at which I found water last year, was near the top of a deep ravine of the Black Rock Hills, in lat. 32 degrees 45 minutes 25 seconds, where I left the dray and the larger portion of my party on the 20th July, taking on only a light spring cart, the bottom filled entirely with kegs containing sufficient water for our horses for nearly three days, and provisions for one month, which was as much as the cart would contain.
"My object being to ascertain the boundaries of the southern termination of the eastern branch of Lake Torrens, as laid down by Mr. Eyre, and also the nature of the country between Flinders range, as high as the parallel of Mount Hopeless, and the meridian of 141 degrees, (the eastern limits of the province), I kept at first a course as near N.N.E. as the nature of the ground would admit, to ensure my not passing to the east of this extremity of the lake; from whence I intended, if possible, to pursue a line nearly north-east, as far as my time and the means at my disposal would allow me, hoping to reach the high land laid down by Sir Thomas Mitchell, on the right banks of the Darling, to the north of Mount Lyell, and thus ascertain if any reasonable hope existed of penetrating at some future time towards the interior from thence. The continued heavy rains which had fallen for more than three weeks before my departure from Adelaide, on the 8th July, and for nearly a fortnight afterwards, had left the surface water in pools on the scrubby plains, and in some of the ravines; but on proceeding north, it was evident that these rains had not been there so general or so heavy, though by steering from point to point of the hills, after crossing the Black Rock Range at Rowe's Creek, I was able to find sufficient water for the horses, and to replenish the kegs every second or third day. From this spot, the plains, as well as the higher land, appeared evidently to dip away to the north-east, the barren hills all diminishing in elevation, and the deep watercourses from Flinders range all crossing the plains in that direction. In one of these watercourses, the Siccus (lat. about 31 degrees 55 minutes), whose section nearly equals that of the Murray, there were indications of not very remote floods having risen to between twenty and thirty feet above its bed, plainly marked by large gum-trees lodged in the forks of the standing trees, and lying high up on its banks, on one of which I remarked dead leaves still on the branches; and in another creek (Pasmore River), lat. 31 degrees 29 minutes, a strong current was running at the spot where we struck it (owing, I suppose, to recent heavy rains among the hills from whence it has its source), but below this point the bed was like that of all the other creeks, as dry as if no rain had ever fallen, and with occasional patches of various shrubs, and salt water tea-tree growing in it. After crossing the low ridge above Prewitt's Springs, lat. 31 degrees 45 minutes, forming the left bank of the basin of the Siccus, the plain extended between the north and east as far as the eye could reach, and the lurid glare of the horizon, as we advanced northward, plainly indicated the approach of Lake Torrens, which, from the direction I had followed, I expected to turn about this point. I was obliged, however, to continue a northerly course for the sake of water, which I could only hope to find in the ravines of the hills on our left, as high as the parallel of 30 degrees 59 minutes, where the lake was visible within fifteen or sixteen miles, and appeared from the high land to be covered with water, studded with islands, and backed on the east by a bold rocky shore. These appearances were, however, all deceptive, being caused solely by the extraordinary refraction, as on riding to the spot the following day, not a drop of water was to be seen in any direction. The islands turned out to be mere low sandy ridges, very scantily clothed with stunted scrub on their summits, and no distant land appeared any where between the north and south-east, though from the hills above our camp of the previous night, I could discern, with the aid of a very powerful telescope, a ridge of low land, either on the eastern side of the lake, or rising out of it, distant at least seventy miles, rendered visible at that distance by the excessive refractive power of the atmosphere on the horizon. A salt crust was seen at intervals on the surface of the sand at the margin of the lake, or as it might more properly be called, the Desert; but this appearance might either be caused by water brought down by the Siccus, and other large watercourses spreading over the saline soil in times of flood, or by rain, and appeared to me no proof of its ever being covered with water for any period of time. A few pieces of what appeared drift timber were also lying about its surface. The sand, as we advanced farther east, became more loose and drifting, and not a blade of grass, or any species of vegetation, was visible, rendering hopeless any attempt to cross it with horses. This point of the lake shore, being by Mr. Eyre's chart about thirty miles to the westward of where I found it, I thought it advisable to push further north, in the direction of the highest point of the range, which I imagined was probably his Mount Serle; for though it was not to be expected that Mr. Eyre, whose principal and almost sole object was to discover a road to the interior, would, at the same time, have been able to lay down the position of his route with the same accuracy that might have been expected from a surveyor; this difference of longitude prevented my being certain of the identity of the spot, or that the range on our left, might not after all, be another long promontory running to the north, similar to that on the western side of which was Mr. Eyre's course. The appearance of the country, however, from the hills close under Mount Serle (for the perpendicular cliffs on the east side of this range of hills prevented my ascending to their summit without turning them among the ranges, for which I had not time), convinced me at once, from its perfect accordance with the description given by Mr. Eyre, that his eastern arm of Lake Torrens was the sandy desert I had left, its surface being about three hundred feet above the level of the sea; and our two converging lines having thus met at Mount Serle, I knew it was useless to advance further in the same direction to a spot which he had named, from the impossibility of proceeding beyond it, "Mount Hopeless."
"I was thus forced to return to Pasmore River, as the nearest point from whence I could cross to the low hills to the eastward, south of Lake Torrens; and from thence I sent back to the depot two men of the party, and three horses--the former for the sake of their rations, and the latter on account of the probable difficulty I should have in procuring water--taking on with me only Mr. Henderson and Mr. Hawker on foot, with the light cart and one policeman. The second evening I made the most northern of these hills, but could not find a drop of water in any of them; and having unluckily lost the policeman, who had crossed in front of the dray and got entangled in the dense scrub, I was detained three days riding upon his tracks, until I had traced them to our dray tracks from the depot at the Black Rock Hill, which he reached in safety, after being out five days without food. The cart, in the mean time, had been obliged to leave the spot where I left it, for want of water--having been out six days without obtaining any but what we carried in the kegs; and when I overtook it, we had not sufficient provisions for another attempt, the period of one month, for which they were intended to last, having already nearly expired.
"I very much regret not having been able to reach, at all events, within sight of Mount Lyell; but where I turned I could plainly see the whole country within fifty or sixty miles of the boundaries of the province, and can speak with almost as much confidence of its absolute sterility as if I had actually ridden over it. It would certainly be possible in the wet season to take a small party from Prewitt's Springs across to this hill of Sir Thomas Mitchell (distant about one hundred and sixty miles), by carrying on water for eight or ten days; but no further supply might be found short of the Darling (eighty miles beyond Mount Lyell), on which river it would be madness to attempt anything without a considerable force, on account of the natives; and the same point might be reached in nearly as short a time, and with much more certainty, with any number of men that might be considered necessary, by ascending the Murray as high as the Laidley Ponds, and proceeding north from thence.
"On returning to the depot, I moved the party down to Mount Bryan, and made another attempt on the 25th August, with Mr. Henderson, and one man leading a pack-horse, to the north-east, hoping, from the heavy rains which had fallen during the past two months, to find sufficient water in the ravines to enable me to push on for several days. The second day, I crossed the high range I had observed from the Black Rock Hills and Mount Bryan, for the southern termination of which Colonel Gawler steered when he left the northern bend of the Murray in December, 1839; but though these hills had an elevation of twelve hundred or fourteen hundred feet above the plain, there was no indication of rain having fallen there since the deluge. This want of water prevented my proceeding further to the north-east; but from the summit of the highest of these hills (Mount Porcupine,) I had a clear view of the horizon in every direction, and a more barren, sterile country, cannot be imagined.
"The direction of the dividing ridge between the basin of the Murray and the interior desert plain was generally about north-east from the Black Rock Hills (the highest point north of Mount Bryan,) gradually decreasing in elevation, and, if possible, increasing in barrenness. The summits of those hills I found invariably rock--generally sandstone--the lower slopes covered with dense brush, and the valleys with low scrub, with occasional small patches of thin wiry grass. I was obliged to return on the third day, and reached the foot of Mount Bryan on the fourth evening, at the southern extremity of which hill the horses were nearly bogged in the soft ground, though only fifty miles distant from land where the dust was flying as if in the midst of summer.
"It appears to me certain, from the result of these different attempts, that there is no country eastward of the high land extending north from Mount Bryan, as far as Mount Hopeless, a distance of about three hundred miles, as far as the meridian of 141 degrees (and probably much beyond it), available for either agricultural or pastoral purposes; and that, though there may be occasional spots of good land at the base of the main range on the sources of the numerous creeks flowing from thence towards the inland desert, these must be too limited in extent to be of any present value.
"The nature of the formation of the main range I found generally iron-stone, conglomerate and quartz, with sandstone and slate at the lower elevation. At the points of highest elevation from Mount Bryan northward, igneous rocks of basaltic character protruded from below, forming rugged and fantastic outlines.
"At one spot, particularly, about 30 degrees, there were marked indications of volcanic action, and several hollows resembling small craters of extinct volcanoes, near one of which we found a small spring of water, maintaining always a temperature of about 76 degrees Farenheit, when the thermometer standing in water in the kegs stood at 52 degrees, and in the atmosphere at 54 degrees.
"The accompanying sketch of the country from Mount Bryan northwards, will probably explain its character better than any written description. The altitudes marked at the different spots where they were observed, were obtained by the temperature of boiling water, as observed by two thermometers; but as they were not graduated with sufficient minuteness for such purposes, the results can only be considered approximate."
E. C. FROME, Capt. Royal Engineers, Surveyor-General. September 14th, 1843.
In the above report it will be observed, that there are some apparent discrepancies between my account and Captain Frome's. First, with respect to the position of the south-east extremity of Lake Torrens. Captain Frome states that he found that point thirty miles more to the east than I had placed it in my chart. Now the only sketch of my course under Flinders range, and that a rough one, which I furnished to the Colonial Government, was sent from Port Lincoln, and is the same which was subsequently published with other papers, relative to South Australia, for the House of Commons, in 1843. This sketch was put together hastily for his Excellency the Governor, that I might not lose the opportunity of forwarding it when I sent from Port Lincoln to Adelaide for supplies early in October, 1840. It was constructed entirely, after I found myself compelled to return from the northern interior, and could only be attended to, in a hurried and imperfect manner, during the brief intervals I could snatch from other duties, whilst travelling back from the north to Port Lincoln (nearly 400 miles,) during which time my movements were very rapid, and many arrangements, consequent upon dividing my party at Baxter's range, had to be attended to; added to this were the difficulties and embarrassments of conducting myself one division of the party to Port Lincoln, through 200 miles of a desert country which had never been explored before, and which, from its arid and sterile character, presented impediments of no ordinary kind.
Upon my return to Adelaide in 1841, after the Expedition had terminated, other duties engrossed my time, and it was only after the publication of Captain Frome's report, that my attention was again called to the subject. Upon comparing my notes and bearings with the original sketch I had made, I found that in the hurry and confusion of preparing it, whilst travelling, I had laid down all the bearings and courses magnetic, without allowing for the variation; nor can this error, perhaps, be wondered at, considering the circumstances under which the sketch was constructed.
At Mount Hopeless the variation was 4 degrees E., at Mount Arden it was 7 degrees 24 minutes E. Now if this variation be applied proportionably to all the courses and bearings as marked down in the original chart, commencing from Mount Arden, it will be found that Mount Serle will be brought by my map very nearly in longitude to where Captain Frome places it. [Note 30 at end of para.] Our latitudes appear to agree exactly. The second point upon which some difference appears to exist between Captain Frome's report and mine is the character of Lake Torrens itself, which Captain Frome thought might more properly be called a desert. This, it will be observed, is with reference to its south-east extremity--a point I never visited, and which I only saw once from Mount Serle; a point, too, which from the view I then had of it, distant although it was, even at that time seemed to me to be "apparently dry," and is marked as such in Arrowsmith's chart, published from the sketch alluded to.
[Note 30: This has been done by Arrowsmith in the map which accompanies these volumes;--to which Mr. Arrowsmith has also added Captain Frome's route from the original tracings.]
There is, however, a still greater, and more singular difference alluded to in Captain Frome's report, which it is necessary to remark; I mean that of the elevation of the country. On the west side of Flinders range, for 200 miles that I traced the course of Lake Torrens, it was, as I have observed, girded in its whole course by a steep ridge, like a sea-shore, from which you descended into a basin, certainly not above the level of the sea, possibly even below it (I had no instruments with me to enable me to ascertain this,) the whole bed consisted of mud and water, and I found it impossible to advance far into it from its boggy nature. On the east side of Flinders range, Captain Frome found the lake a desert, 300 feet above the level of the sea, [Note 31: By altitude deduced from the temperature of boiling water.] and consisting of "loose and drifting sand," and "low sandy ridges, very scantily clothed with stunted scrub on their summits." Now, by referring to Captain Frome's chart and report, it appears that the place thus described was nearly thirty miles south of Mount Serle, and consequently twenty miles south of that part of the bed of Lake Torrens which I had seen from that hill. It is further evident, that Captain Frome had not reached the basin of Lake Torrens, and I cannot help thinking, that if he had gone further to the north-east, he would have come to nearly the same level that I had been at on the western side of the hills. There are several reasons for arriving at this conclusion. First, the manner in which the drainage is thrown off from the east side of Flinders range, and the direction which the watercourses take to the north-east or north; secondly, because an apparent connection was traceable in the course of the lake, from the heights in Flinders range, nearly all the way round it; thirdly, because the loose sands and low sandy ridges crowned with scrub, described by Captain Frome, were very similar to what I met with near Lake Torrens in the west side, before I reached its basin.
After the Northern Expedition had been compelled to return south, (being unable to cross Lake Torrens,) the peninsula of Port Lincoln was examined, and traversed completely round, in all the three sides of the triangle formed by its east and west coasts, and a line from Mount Arden to Streaky Bay. A road overland from Mount Arden was forced through the scrub for a dray; but the country travelled through was of so inhospitable a character as to hold out no prospect of its being generally available for overland communication. One unfortunate individual has since made an attempt to take over a few head of cattle by this route, but was unable to accomplish it, and miserably perished with his whole party from want of water. [Note 32: Vide note to page 154, Vol. I. (Note 11)]
On the northern side of the triangle I have alluded to, or on the line between Mount Arden and Streaky Bay, a singularly high and barren range, named the Gawler Range after His Excellency the Governor, was found consisting of porphoritic granite, extending nearly all the way across, and then stretching out to the north-west in lofty rugged outline as far as the eye could reach; the most remarkable fact connected with this range, was the arid and sterile character of the country in which it was situated, as well as of the range itself, which consisted entirely of rugged barren rocks, without timber or vegetation. There was not a stream or a watercourse of any kind emanating from it; we could find neither spring nor permanent fresh water, and the only supply we procured for ourselves was from the deposits left by very recent rains, and which in a few days more, would have been quite dried up. The soil was in many places saline, and wherever water had lodged in any quantity (as in lakes of which there were several) it was quite salt.
[Note 33: A small exploring party, under a Mr. Darke, was sent from Port Lincoln in August, 1844, but after getting as far as the Gawler Range were compelled by the inhospitable nature of the country to return. The unfortunate leader was murdered by the natives on his route homewards.]
Continuing the line of coast to the westward, the expedition passed through the most wretched and desolate country imaginable, consisting almost entirely of a table-land, or of undulating ridges, covered for the most part with dense scrubs, and almost wholly without either grass or water. The general elevation of this country was from three to five hundred feet, and all of the tertiary deposit, with primary rocks protruding at intervals.
The first permanent fresh water met with on the surface was a small fresh-water lake, beyond the parallel of 123 degrees E.; but from Mount Arden to that point, a distance of fully 800 miles in a direct line, none whatever was found on the surface (if I except a solitary small spring sunk in the rock at Streaky Bay). During the whole of this vast distance, not a watercourse, not a hollow of any kind was crossed; the only water to be obtained was by digging close to the sea-shore, or the sand-hills of the coast, and even by that means it frequently could not be procured for distances of 150 to 160 miles together. With the exception of the Gawler Range, which lies between Streaky Bay and Mount Arden, this dreary waste was one almost uniform table-land of fossil formation, with an elevation of from three to five hundred feet, covered for the most part by dense impenetrable scrubs, and varied only on its surface by occasional sandy or rocky undulations.
What then can be the nature of that mysterious interior, bounded as it is by a table-land without river or lakes, without watercourses or drainage of any kind, for so vast a distance? Can it be that the whole is one immense interminable desert, or an alternation of deserts and shallow salt lakes like Lake Torrens? Conjecture is set at defiance by the impenetrable arrangements of nature; where, the more we pry into her secrets, the more bewildered and uncertain become all our speculations.
It has been a common and a popular theory to imagine the existence of an inland sea, and this theory has been strengthened and confirmed by the opinion of so talented, so experienced, and so enterprising a traveller as my friend Captain Sturt, in its favour. That gentleman, with the noble and disinterested enthusiasm by which he has ever been characterised, has once more sacrificed the pleasure and quiet of domestic happiness, at the shrine of enterprise and science. With the ardour of youth, and the perseverance and judgment of riper years, he is even now traversing the trackless wilds, and seeking to lift up that veil which has hitherto hung over their recesses. May he be successful to the utmost of his wishes, and may he again rejoin in health and safety his many friends, to forget in their approbation and admiration the toils he has encountered, and to enjoy the rewards and laurels which will have been so hardly earned, and so well deserved.
It was in August, 1844, that Captain Sturt set out upon his arduous undertaking, with a numerous and well equipped party, and having provisions calculated to last them for eighteen months. I had the pleasure of accompanying the expedition as far as the Rufus (about 240 miles from Adelaide), to render what assistance I could, in passing up, on friendly terms among the more distant natives of the Murray. Since my return, Captain Sturt has been twice communicated with, and twice heard from, up to the time I left the Colony, on the 21st December, 1844. The last official communication addressed to the Colonial Government will be found in Chapter IX. of Notes on the Aborigines. The following is a copy of a private letter to John Morphett, Esq M.C., and published in the Adelaide Observer of the 9th November, 1844:--
"14th October, 1844.
"I left Lake Victoria, as I told you in a former letter, on the 18th of September, and again cut across the country to the Murray. As we travelled along we saw numerous tracks of wild cattle leading from the marshes to the river, and we encamped at the junction of the river and a lagoon (one of the most beautiful spots you ever saw), just where these tracks were most numerous. In the night therefore we were surrounded by lowing herds, coming to the green pastures of which we had taken possession. In the morning I sent Messrs. Poole and Brown, with Flood my stockman, and Mark to drive in some bullocks, as I was anxious to secure one or two workers. The brush however was too thick, and in galloping through it after a bull, Flood's carbine exploded, and blew off three of the fingers of his right hand. This accident obliged me to remain stationary for two days, notwithstanding my anxiety to get up to the lagoon at Williorara, to ascertain the truth or otherwise of the report I had heard of the massacre of a party of overlanders there.
"On the 23rd I reached the junction of the Ana branch with the Murray, discovered by Eyre, and then turned northwards. Running this Ana branch up, I crossed it where the water ceased, and went to the Darling, striking it about fifteen miles above its junction with the Murray. The unlooked-for course of the Darling however kept me longer on its banks than I had anticipated; but you can form no idea of the luxuriant verdure of its flats. They far surpass those of the Murray, both in quantity and quality of soil; and extended for many miles at a stretch along the river side. We have run up it at a very favourable season, and seen the commencement of its floods; for, two days after we reached it, and found it with scarcely any water in its bed, we observed a fresh in it, indicated by a stronger current. The next morning to our surprise the waters were half-bank high. They had risen six feet during the night, and were carrying everything before them; now they are full sixteen feet above their level, and a most beautiful river it is. Over this said mysterious river, as Major Mitchell calls it, the trees drooped like willows, or grew in dark clusters at each turn; the sloping banks were of a vivid green, the flats lightly timbered, and the aspect of the whole neighbourhood cheerful.
"I had hoped that we should have been able to approach the ranges pretty closely along the line of Laidley's Ponds; but fancy our disappointment when we arrived on its banks to find that instead of a mountain stream it was a paltry creek, connecting a lake, now dry, with the river, and that its banks were quite bare. I was therefore obliged to fall back upon the Darling, and have been unable to stir for the last four days by reason of heavy rain.
"On Tuesday I despatched Mr. Poole to the ranges, which are forty miles distant from us, to ascertain if there is water or feed under them; but I have no hope of good tidings, and believe I shall ultimately be obliged to establish myself on the Darling.
"You will be glad to hear, and so ought every body, that we have maintained a most satisfactory intercourse with the natives. The report we had heard referred to Major Mitchell's affray with them, and you will not be surprised at their reverting to it, when I tell you that several old men immediately recognized me as having gone down the Murray in a boat, although they could have seen me for an hour or two only, and fifteen years have now elapsed since I went down the river. I suppose we misunderstood the story; but most assuredly I fully anticipated we should, sooner or later, come on some dreadful acene or other, and I came up fully prepared to act; but the natives have been exceedingly quiet, nor have we seen a weapon in the hands of any of them: in truth I have been quite astonished at the change in the blacks; for instead of collecting in a body, they have visited us with their wives and children, and have behaved in the most quiet manner. We may attribute this in part to our own treatment of the natives, and in part to Eyre's influence over them, which is very extensive, and has been productive of great good. The account the natives give of the distant interior is very discouraging. It is nothing more however than what I expected. They say that beyond the hills it is all sand and rocks; that there is neither grass or water, or wood; and that it is awfully hot. This last feature appears to terrify them. They say that they are obliged to take wood to the hills for fire, and that they clamber up the rocks on the hills; that when there is water there, it is in deep holes from which they are obliged to sponge it up and squeeze it out to drink. I do not in truth think that any of the natives have been beyond the hills, and that the country is perfectly impracticable.
"We are now not more than two hundred and fifteen feet above the sea, with a declining country to the north-west, and the general dip of the continent to the south-west. What is the natural inference where there is not a single river emptying itself upon the coast, but that there is an internal basin? Such a country can only be penetrated by cool calculation and determined perseverance. I have sat down before it as a besieger before a fortress, to make my approaches with the same systematic regularity. I must cut hay and send forage and water in advance, as far as I can. I have the means of taking sixteen days' water and feed for two horses and three men; and if I can throw my supplies one hundred miles in advance, I shall be able to go two hundred miles more beyond that point, at the rate of thirty miles a-day, one of us walking whilst two rode. Surely at such a distance some new feature will open to reward our efforts! My own opinion is, that an inland sea will bring us up ere long--then how shall we get the boat upon it? 'Why,' you will say, 'necessity is the mother of invention.' You will find some means or other, no doubt; and so we will. However, under any circumstances, depend upon it I will either lift up or tear down the curtain which hides the interior from us, so look out for the next accounts from me as of the most interesting kind, as solving this great problem, or shutting the door to discovery from this side the continent for ever.
"P.S. Poole has just returned from the ranges. I have not time to write over again. He says that there are high ranges to N. and N.W. and water,--a sea extending along the horizon from S.W. by W., to ten E. of N. in which there are a number of islands and lofty ranges as far as the eye can reach. What is all this? Are we to be prosperous? I hope so; and I am sure you do. To-morrow we start for the ranges, and then for the waters,--the strange waters on which boat never swam, and over which flag never floated. But both shall are long. We have the heart of the interior laid open to us, and shall be off with a flowing sheet in a few days. Poole says that the sea was a deep blue, and that in the midst of it there was a conical island of great height. When will you hear from me again?"
From this communication, Captain Sturt appears to be sanguine of having realized the long hoped for sea, and at last of having found a key to the centre of the continent. Most sincerely do I hope that this may be the case, and that the next accounts may more than confirm such satisfactory intelligence.
My own impressions were always decidedly opposed to the idea of an inland sea, nor have I changed them in the least, now that circumstances amounting almost to proof, seem to favour that opinion.
Entertaining, as I do, the highest respect for the opinion of one so every way capable of forming a correct judgment as Captain Sturt, it is with considerable diffidence that I advance any conjectures in opposition to his, and especially so, as I may be thought presumptuous in doing so in the face of the accounts received. Until these accounts, however, are further confirmed, the question still remains as it was; and it may perhaps not be out of place to allude to some of the reasons which have led me to form an opinion somewhat different from that entertained by Captain Sturt, and which I have been compelled to arrive at after a long personal experience, a closer approach to the interior, and a more extensive personal examination of the continent, than any other traveller has hitherto made. In the course of that experience, I have never met with the slightest circumstance to lead me to imagine that there should be an inland sea, still less a deep navigable one, and having an outer communication with the ocean. I can readily suppose, and, in fact, I do so believe, that a considerable portion of the interior consists of the beds or basins of salt lakes or swamps, as Lake Torrens, and some of which might be of great extent. I think, also, that these alternate, with sandy deserts, and that probably at intervals, there are many isolated ranges, like the Gawler range, and which, perhaps, even in some places may form a connection of links across the continent, could any favourable point be obtained for commencing the examination.
It is very possible that among these ranges, intervals of a better or even of a rich and fertile country might be met with.
The suggestion thrown out by Captain Sturt a few years ago, that Australia might formerly have been an Archipelago of islands, appears to me to have been a happy idea, and to afford the most rational and satisfactory way of accounting for many of the peculiarities observable upon its surface or in its structure. That it has only recently (compared with other countries) obtained its present elevation, is often forcibly impressed upon the traveller, by the appearance of the country he is traversing, but no where have I found this to be the case in a greater degree, than whilst exploring that part of it, north of Spencer's Gulf, where a great portion of the low lands intervening, between the base of Flinders range, and the bed of Lake Torrens, presents the appearance of a succession of rounded undulations of sand or pebbles washed perfectly smooth and even, looking like waves of the sea, and seeming as if they had not been very many centuries deserted by the element that had moulded them into their present form. In this singular district I found scattered at intervals throughout the whole area inclosed by, but south of, Lake Torrens, many steep-sided fragments of a table land, [Note 34 at end of para.] which had evidently been washed to pieces by the violent action of water, and which appeared to have been originally, of nearly the same general elevation as the table lands to the westward. It seems to me, that these table lands have formerly been the bed of the ocean, and this opinion is fully borne out by the many marine remains, fossil shells, and banks of oyster shells, [Note 35 at end of para.] which are frequently to be met with embedded in them. What are now the ranges of the continent would therefore formerly have been but rocks or islands, and if this supposition be true, there are still hopes that some other islands are scattered over the immense space occupied by Australia, and which may be of as rich and fertile a character, as any that are yet known. Thus if the intervening extent of desert lying between any of the known portions of Australia, and what may be considered as having been the next island, can be ascertained and crossed over, new and valuable regions may yet be offered for the extension of the pastoral interest of our Colonies, and for the general spread of civilization and improvement.
[Note 34: "An hundred miles above this, I passed a curious feature, called the "Square Hills" (plate 123 ). I landed my canoe and went ashore, and to their tops to examine them. Though they appeared to be near the river, I found it half a day's journey to travel to and from them; they being several miles from the river. On ascending them I found them to be two or three hundred feet high, and rising on their sides at an angle of 45 deg. and on their tops, in some places for half a mile in length perfectly level, with a green turf, and corresponding exactly with the tabular hills spoken of above the Mandans, in plate 39, vol. 1. I therein said that I should visit these hills on my way down the river; and I am fully convinced from close examination, that they are a part of the same original superstratum, which I therein described, though 7 or 800 miles separated from them. They agree exactly in character, and also in the materials of which they are composed; and I believe that some unaccountable gorge of waters has swept away the intervening earth, leaving these solitary and isolated, though incontrovertible evidences, that the summit level of all this great valley, has at one time been where the level surface of these hills now is, two or three hundred feet above what is now denominated the summit level."--Catlin's American Indians, Vol. 2. pp. 11 and 12.]
[Note 35: Similar banks of fossil shells and oyster beds, are found in the Arkansas.--Vide Catlin, Vol. 2. p. 85. At page 86, Mr. Catlin describes banks of gypsum and salt, extending through a considerable extent of country, and which apparently was of a very similar formation to some of the localities I was in to the north of Spencer's Gulf.]
I have already observed that several circumstances connected with my own personal experience have led me to the conclusion, that there is no inland sea now occupying the centre of New Holland; it will be sufficient to name three of the most important of these.
First. I may mention the hot winds which in South Australia, or opposite the centre of the continent, always blow from the north, to those, who have experienced the oppressive and scorching influence of these winds, which can only be compared to the fiery and withering blasts from a heated furnace, I need hardly point out that there is little probability that such winds can have been wafted over a large expanse of water.
Secondly. I may state that between the Darling river and the head of the Great Australian Bight, I have at various points come into friendly communication with the Aborigines inhabiting the outskirts of the interior, and from them I have invariably learnt that they know of no large body of water inland, fresh or salt; that there were neither trees nor ranges, but that all was an arid waste so far as they were accustomed to travel.
Thirdly. I infer the non-existence of an inland sea, from the coincidence observable in the physical appearance, customs, character, and pursuits of the Aborigines at opposite points of the continent, whilst no such coincidence exists along the intervening lines of coast connecting those points.
With respect to the first consideration, it is unnecessary to add further remark; as regards the second, I may state, that although I may sometimes not have met with natives at those precise spots which might have been best suited for making inquiry, or although I may sometimes have had a difficulty in explaining myself to, or in understanding a people whose language I did not comprehend; yet such has not always been the case, and on many occasions I have had intercourse with natives at favourable positions, and have been able, quite intelligibly, to carry on any inquiries. One of these opportunities occurred in the very neighbourhood of the hill from which Mr. Poole is said to have seen the inland sea, as described in Captain Sturt's despatch.
There are several reasons for supposing Mr. Poole to have been deceived in forming an opinion of the objects which he saw before him from that elevation: first, I know, from experience, the extraordinary and deceptive appearances that are produced in such a country as Mr. Poole was in, by mirage and refration combined. I have often myself been very similarly deceived by the semblance of hills, islands, and water, where none such existed in reality. Secondly, in December 1843, I was within twenty-five miles of the very spot from which Mr. Poole thought he looked upon a sea, and I was then accompanied by natives, and able, by means of an interpreter, to communicate with those who were acquainted with the country to the north-west. My inquiries upon this point were particular; but they knew of no sea. They asserted that there was mud out in that direction, and that a party would be unable to travel; from which I inferred either that some branch of the Darling spread out its waters there in time of flood, or that Lake Torrens itself was stretching out in the direction indicated. Thirdly, I hold it physically impossible that a sea can exist in the place assigned to it, in as much as during an expedition, undertaken by the Surveyor-general of the Colony, in September, 1843, that officer had attained a position which would place himself and Mr. Poole at two opposite points, upon nearly the same parallel of latitude; but about 130 miles of longitude apart, in a low level country, and in which, therefore, the ranges of their respective vision from elevations would cross each other, and if there was a sea, Captain Frome must have seen it as well as Mr. Poole; again, I myself had an extensive and distant view to the north-east and east from Mount Hopeless, a low hill, about ninety miles further north than Captain Frome's position, but a little more east; yet there was nothing like a sea to be seen from thence, the dry and glazed-looking bed of Lake Torrens alone interrupting the monotony of the desert.
There are still some few points connected with our knowledge of the outskirts of the interior which leave great room for speculation, and might lead to the opinion that it is not altogether a low or a desert region. The facts which have more immediately come under my own observation, are connected, first with the presence of birds belonging to a higher and better country in the midst of a desert region, and secondly, with the line of route taken by the Aborigines in spreading over the continent, as deduced from a coincidence or dissimilarity of the manners, customs, or languages of tribes remotely apart from one another.
With respect to the presence of birds in a region such as they do not usually frequent, I may state that at Mount Arden, near the head of Spencer's Gulf, swans were seen taking their flight high in the air, to the north, as if making for some river or lake they were accustomed to feed at. At the Frome river, where it spreads into the plains to the north of Flinders range; four white cockatoos were found flying about among the trees, although those birds had not been met with for 200 miles before I attained that point. [Note 36: Vide Vol. I. July 4, Aug 31, and March 19.] And about longitude 128 degrees 20 minutes E., when crossing over towards King George's Sound, large parrots were found coming from the north-east, to feed upon the berries of a shrub growing on the sea coast, although no parrots were seen for two or three hundred miles on either side, either to the east or to the west, they must, therefore, have come from the interior. Now the parrot is a bird that often frequents a mountainous country, and always inhabits one having timber of a better description and larger growth than the miserable shrubs met with along the coast; it is a bird too that always lives within reach of permanent fresh-water, as rivers, lakes, creeks, pools, etc. Can there then be such in the interior, with so barren and arid a region, bounding it? and how are we to commence an examination with so many difficulties and embarrassments attending the very outset?
The second series of facts which have attracted my attention, relate to the Aborigines. It is a well known circumstance that the dialects, customs, and pursuits in use among them in the various parts of the continent, differ very much from each other in some particulars, and yet that there is such a general similarity in the aggregate as to leave no room to doubt that all the Aborigines of Australia have had one common origin, and are in reality one and the same race. If this then is really the case, they must formerly have spread over the continent from one first point, and this brings me to the
Third reason I have mentioned as being one, from which I infer, that there is not an inland sea, viz., the coincidence observable in the physical appearance, customs, character, and pursuits of the Aborigines, at opposite points of the continent, whilst no such coincidence exists along the intervening lines of coast connecting those two points, and which naturally follows from the circumstances connected with the present location of the various tribes in which this is observable, and with the route which they must have taken to arrive at the places they now occupy on the continent. [Note 37 at end of para.] I believe that the idea of attempting to deduce the character of the continent, and the most probable line for crossing it, from the circumstances and habits of the natives inhabiting the coast line is quite a novel one. It appears to me, however, to be worth consideration; and if it is true that the natives have all one common origin, and have spread over the continent from one first point, I think it may reasonably be inferred that there is a practicable route across the centre of New Holland, and that this line lies between the 125th and 135th degrees of east longitude. It further appears that there must still be a second route, other than the coast line, in the direction between Port Jackson in New South Wales and the south-east corner of the Gulf of Carpentaria on the north coast.
[Note 37: Vide Chapter VII. of Notes on the Aborigines, where this subject will be found fully discussed, and the reasons given for supposing the conclusions here assumed.]
If then we have reasonable grounds for believing that such lines of route actually do exist, it becomes a matter of much interest and importance to determine the most favourable point from which to explore them. My own experience has pointed out the dreadful nature of the southern coast, and the very great and almost insuperable difficulties that beset the traveller at the very commencement--in his efforts even to establish a single depot from which to enter upon his researches. The northern coast may, probably, afford greater facilities, but in a tropical climate, where the heat and other circumstances render ordinary difficulties and impediments still more embarrassing and dangerous, it is a matter of deep moment that the expedition for interior exploration should commence at the right point, and this can only be ascertained by a previous examination.
I have myself always been most anxious to attempt to cross from Moreton Bay on the N. E. coast to Port Essington on the N. W. I believe that this journey is quite practicable, and I have no doubt that if judiciously conducted, and the country to the south of the line of route always examined, as far as that could be done, it would completely develop, in connection with what is already known, the character and formation of Australia, and would at once point out the most proper place from which subsequent expeditions ought to start in order finally to accomplish the passage across its interior--from the north to the south.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA.
Chapter I
PRELIMINARY REMARKS--UNJUST OPINIONS GENERALLY ENTERTAINED OF THE CHARACTER OF THE NATIVE--DIFFICULTIES AND DISADVANTAGES HE LABOURS UNDER IN HIS RELATIONS WITH EUROPEANS--AGGRESSIONS AND INJURIES ON THE PART OF THE LATTER IN GREAT DEGREE EXTENUATE HIS CRIMES.
Upon bringing to a close the narrative of an Expedition of Discovery in Australia, during the progress of which an extensive portion of the previously unknown parts of that continent were explored, I have thought it might not be uninteresting to introduce a few pages on the subject of the Aborigines of the country.
It would afford me much gratification to see an interest excited on their behalf proportioned to the claims of a people who have hitherto been misjudged or misrepresented.
For the last twelve years I have been personally resident in one or other of the Australian Colonies, and have always been in frequent intercourse with the aboriginal tribes that were near, rarely being without some of them constantly with me as domestics.
To the advantages of private opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of their character were added, latterly, the facilities afforded by my holding a public appointment in South Australia, in the midst of a district more densely populated by natives than any in that Colony, where no settler had ventured to locate, and where, prior to my arrival in October 1841, frightful scenes of bloodshed, rapine, and hostility between the natives and parties coming overland with stock, had been of frequent and very recent occurrence.
As Resident Magistrate of the Murray District, I may almost say, that for the last three years I have lived with the natives. My duties have frequently taken me to very great distances up the Murray or the Darling rivers, when I was generally accompanied only by a single European, or at most two, and where, if attacked, there was no possibility of my receiving any human aid. I have gone almost alone among hordes of those fierce and blood-thirsty savages, as they were then considered, and have stood singly amongst them in the remote and trackless wilds, when hundreds were congregated around, without ever receiving the least injury or insult.
In my first visits to the more distant tribes I found them shy, alarmed, and suspicious, but soon learning that I had no wish to injure them, they met me with readiness and confidence. My wishes became their law; they conceded points to me that they would not have done to their own people, and on many occasions cheerfully underwent hunger, thirst, and fatigue to serve me.
Former habits and prejudices in some respects gave way to the influence I acquired. Tribes that never met or heard of one another before were brought to mingle in friendly intercourse. Single individuals traversed over immense distances and through many intervening tribes, which formerly they never could have attempted to pass, and in accomplishing this the white man's name alone was the talisman that proved their safe-guard and protection.
During the whole of the three years I was Resident at Moorunde, not a single case of serious injury or aggression ever took place on the part of the natives against the Europeans; and a district, once considered the wildest and most dangerous, was, when I left it in November 1844, looked upon as one of the most peaceable and orderly in the province.
Independently of my own personal experience, on the subject of the Aborigines, I have much pleasure in acknowledging the obligations I am under to M. Moorhouse, Esq. Protector of Aborigines in Adelaide, for his valuable assistance, in comparing and discussing the results of our respective observations, on matters connected with the natives, and for the obliging manner in which he has furnished me with many of his own important and well-arranged notes on various points of interest in their history.
By this aid, I am enabled, in the following pages, to combine my own observations and experience with those of Mr. Moorhouse, especially on points connected with the Adelaide Tribes. In some cases, extracts from Mr. Moorhouse's notes, will be copied in his own words, but in most I found an alteration or rearrangement to be indispensable to enable me to connect and amplify the subjects: I wish it to be particularly understood, however, that with any deductions, inferences, remarks, or suggestions, that may incidentally be introduced, Mr. Moorhouse is totally unconnected, that gentleman's notes refer exclusively to abstract matters of fact, relating to the habits, customs, or peculiarities of the people treated of, and are generally confined to the Adelaide Tribes.
[Note 38: Some few of these notes were printed in the Colony, in a detached form, as Reports to the Colonial Government, or in the Vocabularies of the Missionaries, and since my return to England I find others have been published in papers, ordered to be printed by the House of Commons, in August 1844. From the necessity, however, of altering in some measure the phraseology, to combine Mr. Moorhouse's remarks with my own, and to preserve a uniformity in the descriptions, it has not been practicable or desirable in all cases, to separate or distinguish by inverted commas, those observations which I have adopted. I have, therefore, preferred making a general acknowledgment of the use I have made of the notes that were supplied to me by Mr. Moorhouse.]
In the descriptions given in the following pages, although there may occasionally be introduced, accounts of the habits, manners, or customs of some of the tribes inhabiting different parts of Australia I have visited, yet there are others which are exclusively peculiar to the natives of South Australia. I wish it, therefore, to be understood, that unless mention is made of other tribes, or other parts of the continent, the details given are intended to apply to that province generally, and particularly to the tribes in it, belonging to the districts of Adelaide and the Murray river.
As far as has yet been ascertained, the whole of the aboriginal inhabitants of this continent, scattered as they are over an immense extent of country, bear so striking a resemblance in physical appearance and structure to each other; and their general habits, customs, and pursuits, are also so very similar, though modified in some respects by local circumstances or climate, that little doubt can be entertained that all have originally sprung from the same stock. The principal points of difference, observable between various tribes, appear to consist chiefly in some of their ceremonial observances, and in the variations of dialect in the language they speak; the latter are, indeed, frequently so great, that even to a person thoroughly acquainted with any one dialect, there is not the slightest clue by which he can understand what is said by a tribe speaking a different one.
The only account I have yet met with, which professed to give any particular description of the Aborigines of New Holland, is that contained in the able papers upon this subject, by Captain Grey, in the second volume of his travels. When it is considered, that the material for that purpose was collected by the author, during a few months interval between his two expeditions, which he spent at Swan River, and a short time subsequently passed at King George's Sound, whilst holding the appointment of Government Resident there; it is perfectly surprising that the amount of information amassed should be so great, and so generally correct, on subjects where so many mistakes are liable to be made, in all first inquiries, when we are ignorant of the character and habits of the people of whom information is to be sought, and unacquainted with the language they speak.
The subject, however, upon a portion of which Captain Grey so successfully entered, is very extensive, and one which no single individual, except by the devotion of a life-time, could hope fully to discuss. The Continent of Australia is so vast, and the dialects, customs, and ceremonies of its inhabitants so varied in detail, though so similar in general outline and character, that it will require the lapse of years, and the labours of many individuals, to detect and exhibit the links which form the chain of connection in the habits and history of tribes so remotely separated; and it will be long before any one can attempt to give to the world a complete and well-drawn outline of the whole.
It is not therefore to satisfy curiosity, or to interrupt the course of inquiry, that I enter upon the present work; I neither profess, nor could I attempt to give a full or matured account of the Aborigines of New Holland. Captain Grey's descriptions on this subject are limited to the races of South-western, as mine are principally directed to those of Southern Australia, with occasionally some remarks or anecdotes relating to tribes in other parts of the Continent with whom I have come in contact.
The character of the Australian native has been so constantly misrepresented and traduced, that by the world at large he is looked upon as the lowest and most degraded of the human species, and is generally considered as ranking but little above the members of the brute creation. Savages have always many vices, but I do not think that these are worse in the New Hollanders, than in many other aboriginal races. It is said, indeed, that the Australian is an irreclaimable, unteachable being; that he is cruel, blood-thirsty, revengeful, and treacherous; and in support of such assertions, references are made to the total failure of all missionary and scholastic efforts hitherto made on his behalf, and to many deeds of violence or aggression committed by him upon the settler.
[Note 39: I cannot adduce a stronger proof in support of the position I assume, in favour of the natives, than by quoting the clear and just conclusions at which the Right Honourable Lord Stanley, the present Secretary of State for the Colonies, arrived, when considering the case of some collisions with the natives on the Ovens River, and after a full consideration of the various circumstances connected with the occurrence. In a despatch to Governor Sir G. Gipps, dated 5th October, 1841, Lord Stanley says, "Contrasting the accounts of the Aborigines given by Mr. Docker with those given by Mr. Mackay, and the different terms on which those gentlemen appear to be with them in the same vicinity, I cannot divest myself of the apprehension that the fault in this case lies with the colonists rather than with the natives. It was natural, that conduct so harsh and intemperate as that of the Messrs. Mackay should be signally visited on them, and probably also on wholly unoffending persons, by a race of uninstructed and ignorant savages. At the same time the case of Mr. Docker affords a most satisfactory instance of natives entering into permanent service with white men, and working, as they appear to do, steadily for wages."]
With respect to the first point, I consider that an intimate knowledge of the peculiar habits, laws, and traditions, by which this people are governed, is absolutely necessary, before any just opinion can be formed as to how far the means hitherto pursued, have been suitable, or adapted to counteract the influence of custom and the force of prejudice. Until this knowledge is attained, we have no right to brand them as either irreclaimable, or unteachable. My own impression, after long experience, and an attentive consideration of the subject, is, that in the present anomalous state of our relations with the Aborigines, our measures are neither comprehensive enough for, nor is our system sufficiently adapted to, the singular circumstances they are in, to enable us successfully to contend with the difficulties and impediments in the way of their rising in the scale of civilization.
Upon the second point it is also necessary to make many inquiries before we arrive at our conclusions; and I have no doubt, if this be done with calmness, and without prejudice, it will be generally found that there are many extenuating circumstances which may be brought to modify our judgment. I am anxious, if possible, to place a few of these before the public, in the hope, that by lessening in some degree the unfavourable opinion heretofore entertained of the Aborigines, they may be considered for the future as more deserving our sympathy and benevolence.
Without assuming for the native a freedom from vice, or in any way attempting to palliate the many brutalising habits that pollute his character, I would still contend that, if stained with the excesses of unrestrained passions, he is still sometimes sensible to the better emotions of humanity. Many of the worst traits in his character are the result of necessity, or the force of custom--the better ones are implanted in him as a part of his nature. With capabilities for receiving, and an aptness for acquiring instruction, I believe he has also the capacity for appreciating the rational enjoyments of life.
Even in his present low and debased condition, and viewed under every disadvantages, I do not imagine that his vices would usually be found greater, or his passions more malignant than those of a very large proportion of men ordinarily denominated civilised. On the contrary, I believe were Europeans placed under the same circumstances, equally wronged, and equally shut out from redress, they would not exhibit half the moderation or forbearance that these poor untutored children of impulse have invariably shewn.
It is true that occasionally many crimes have been committed by them, and robberies and murders have too often occurred; but who can tell what were the provocations which led to, what the feelings which impelled such deeds? Neither have they been the only or the first aggressors, nor has their race escaped unscathed in the contest. Could blood answer blood, perhaps for every drop of European's shed by natives, a torrent of their, by European hands, would crimson the earth.
[Note 40: "The whites were generally the aggressors. He had been informed that a petition had been presented to the Governor, containing a list of nineteen murders committed by the blacks. He could, if it were necessary, make out a list of five hundred blacks who had been slaughtered by the whites, and that within a short time."--Extract from speech of Mr. Threlkeld to the Auxiliary Aborigines' Protection Society in New South Wales. Abstract of a "Return of the number of homicides committed respectively by blacks and whites, within the limits of the northwestern district (of Port Phillip), since its first occupation by settlers--"
"Total number of white people killed by Aborigines 8 "Total number of Aborigines killed by white people 43."
This is only in one district, and only embraces such cases as came to the knowledge of Mr. Protector Parker. For particulars vide Papers on Aborigines of Australian Colonies, printed for the House of Commons, August 1844, p. 318.]
Let us now inquire a little, upon whose side right and justice are arrayed in palliation (if any such there can be) of deeds of violence or aggression on the part of either.
It is an undeniable fact, that wherever European colonies have been established in Australia, the native races in that neighbourhood are rapidly decreasing, and already in some of the elder settlements, have totally disappeared. It is equally indisputable that the presence of the white man has been the sole agent in producing so lamentable an effect; that the evil is still going on, increased in a ratio proportioned to the number of new settlements formed, or the rapidity with which the settlers overrun new districts. The natural, the inevitable, but the no less melancholy result must be, that in the course of a few years more, if nothing be done to check it, the whole of the aboriginal tribes of Australia will be swept away from the face of the earth. A people who, by their numbers, have spread around the whole of this immense continent, and have probably penetrated into and occupied its inmost recesses, will become quite extinct, their name forgotten, their very existence but a record of history.
It is a popular, but an unfair and unwarranted assumption, that these consequences are the result of the natural course of events; that they are ordained by Providence, unavoidable, and not to be impeded. Let us at least ascertain how far they are chargeable upon ourselves.
Without entering upon the abstract question concerning the right of one race of people to wrest from another their possessions, simply because they happen to be more powerful than the original inhabitants, or because they imagine that they can, by their superior skill or acquirements, enable the soil to support a denser population, I think it will be conceded by every candid and right-thinking mind, that no one can justly take that which is not his own, without giving some equivalent in return, or deprive a people of their ordinary means of support, and not provide them with any other instead. Yet such is exactly the position we are in with regard to the inhabitants of Australia.
[Note 41: "The invasion of those ancient rights (of the natives) by survey and land appropriations of any kind, is justifiable only on the ground, that we should at the same time reserve for the natives an AMPLE SUFFICIENCY for THEIR PRESENT and future use and comfort, under the new style of things into which they are thrown; a state in which we hope they will be led to live in greater comfort, on a small space, than they enjoyed before it occurred, on their extensive original possessions."--Reply of His Excellency Colonel Gawler, to the gentlemen who objected to sections of land being appropriated for the natives, before the public were allowed to select.]
Without laying claim to this country by right of conquest, without pleading even the mockery of cession, or the cheatery of sale, we have unhesitatingly entered upon, occupied, and disposed of its lands, spreading forth a new population over its surface, and driving before us the original inhabitants.
To sanction this aggression, we have not, in the abstract, the slightest shadow of either right or justice--we have not even the extenuation of endeavouring to compensate those we have injured, or the merit of attempting to mitigate the sufferings our presence inflicts.
It is often argued, that we merely have taken what the natives did not require, or were making no use of; that we have no wish to interfere with them if they do not interfere with us, but rather that we are disposed to treat them with kindness and conciliation, if they are willing to be friends with us. What, however, are the actual facts of the case; and what is the position of a tribe of natives, when their country is first taken possession of by Europeans.
It is true that they do not cultivate the ground; but have they, therefore, no interest in its productions? Does it not supply grass for the sustenance of the wild animals upon which in a great measure they are dependent for their subsistence?--does it not afford roots and vegetables to appease their hunger?--water to satisfy their thirst, and wood to make their fire?--or are these necessaries left to them by the white man when he comes to take possession of their soil? Alas, it is not so! all are in turn taken away from the original possessors. The game of the wilds that the European does not destroy for his amusement are driven away by his flocks and herds. [Note 42 at end of para.] The waters are occupied and enclosed, and access to them in frequently forbidden. The fields are fenced in, and the natives are no longerat liberty to dig up roots--the white man claims the timber, and the very firewood itself is occasion ally denied to them. Do they pass by the habitation of the intruder, they are probably chased away or bitten by his dogs, and for this they can get no redress. [Note 43 at end of para.] Have they dogs of their own, they are unhesitatingly shot or worried because they are an annoyance to the domestic animals of the Europeans. Daily and hourly do their wrongs multiply upon them. The more numerous the white population becomes, and the more advanced the stage of civilization to which the settlement progresses, the greater are the hardships that fall to their lot and the more completely are they cut off from the privileges of their birthright. All that they have is in succession taken away from them--their amusements, their enjoyments, their possessions, their freedom--and all that they receive in return is obloquy, and contempt, and degradation, and oppression. [Note 44 appears after note 43, below]
[Note 42: "But directly an European settles down in the country, his constant residence in one spot soon sends the animals away from it, and although he may in no other way interfere with the natives, the mere circumstance of his residing there, does the man on whose land he settles the injury of depriving him of his ordinary means of subsistence."--GREY'S TRAVELS, vol. ii. p. 298.
"The great question was, were we to give them no equivalent for that which we had taken from them? Had we deprived them of nothing? Was it nothing that they were driven from the lands where their fathers lived, where they were born and which were endeared to them by associations equally strong with the associations of more civilsed people? He believed that their affections were as warm as the Europeans." "Perhaps he obtained his subsistence by fishing, and occupied a slip of land on the banks of a river or the margin of a lake. Was he to be turned off as soon as the land was required, without any consideration whatever?" "Had any proper attempt been made for their civilization? They had not yet had fair play--they had been courted by the missionaries with the Bible on the one hand, and had at the sametime been driven away and destroyed by the stock-keepers on the other. He thought that they might be reclaimed if the proper course was adopted."--EXTRACTS FROM THE SPEECH OF SYDNEY STEPHEN, ESQ., AT A MEETING ON BEHALF OF THE ABORIGINES IN SYDNEY, OCTOBER 19, 1838.
I have myself repeatedly seen the natives driven off private lands in the vicinity of Adelaide, and their huts burned, even in cold wet weather. The records of the Police Office will shew that they have been driven off the Park lands, or those belonging to Government, or at least that they have been brought up and punished for cutting wood from the trees there. What are they to do, when there is not a stick or a tree within miles of Adelaide that they can legally take?]
[Note 43: I have known repeated instances of natives in Adelaide being bitten severely by savage dogs rushing out at them from the yards of their owners, as they were peaceably passing along the street. On the other hand I have known a native imprisoned for throwing his waddy at, and injuring a pig, which was eating a melon he had laid down for a moment in the street, and when the pig ought not to have been in the street at all. In February 1842, a dog belonging to a native was shot by order of Mr. Gouger, the then Colonial Secretary, and the owner as soon as he became aware of the circumstance, speared his wife for not taking better care of it, although she could not possibly have helped the occurrence. If natives then revenge so severely such apparently trivial offences among themselves, can we wonder that they should sometimes retaliate upon us for more aggravated ones.]
[Note 44: The following are extracts from an address to a jury, when trying some aboriginal natives, by Judge Willis. They at least shew some of the BLESSINGS the Aborigines experience from being made British subjects, and placed under British laws:--"I have, on a recent occasion, stated my opinion, which I still entertain, that the proprietor of a run, or, in other words, one who holds a lease or license from the Crown to depasture certain Crown lands, may take all lawful means to prevent either natives or others from entering or remaining upon it." "The aboriginals of Van Diemen's Land were strictly commanded, by Governor Arthur's proclamation of the 15th of April 1828 (a proclamation of which His Majesty King George the Fourth, through the Right honourable the then Secretary of State, by a dispatch of the 2nd of February, 1829, under the circumstances, signified his approval,) "to retire and depart from, and for no reason, and no pretence, save as therein provided, (viz. travelling annually to the sea coast in quest of shellfish, under certain regulations,) to re-enter the settled districts of Van Diemen's Land, or any portions of land cultivated and occupied by any person whomsoever, under the authority of Her Majesty's Government, on pain of forcible expulsion therefrom, and such consequences as might be necessarily attendant on it, and all magistrates and other persons by them authorized and deputed, were required to conform themselves to the directions and instructions of this proclamation, in effecting the retirement and expulsion of the Aborigines from the settled districts of that territory."]
What are they to do under such circumstances, or how support a life so bereft of its wonted supplies? Can we wonder that they should still remain the same low abject and degraded creatures that they are, loitering about the white man's house, and cringing, and pandering to the lowest menial for that food they can no longer procure for themselves? or that wandering in misery through a country, now no longer their own, their lives should be curtailed by want, exposure, or disease? If, on the other hand, upon the first appearance of Europeans, the natives become alarmed, and retire from their presence, they must give up all the haunts they had been accustomed to frequent, and must either live in a starving condition, in the back country, ill supplied with game, and often wanting water, or they must trespass upon the territory of another tribe, in a district perhaps little calculated to support an additional population, even should they be fortunate enough to escape being forced into one belonging to an enemy.
Under any circumstances, however, they have but little respite from inconvenience and want. The white man rapidly spreads himself over the country, and without the power of retiring any further, they are overtaken, and beset by all the evils from which they had previously fled.
Such are some of the blessings held out to the savage by civilization, and they are only some of them. The picture is neither fanciful nor overdrawn; there is no trait in it that I have not personally witnessed, or that might not have been enlarged upon; and there are often other circumstances of greater injury and aggression, which, if dwelt upon, would have cast a still darker shade upon the prospects and condition of the native.
Enough has, however, perhaps been said to indicate the degree of injury our presence unavoidably inflicts. I would hope, also, to point out the justice, as well as the expediency of appropriating a considerable portion of the money obtained, by the sales of land, towards alleviating the miseries our occupation of their country has occasioned to the original owners.
[Note 44a: "That it appears to memorialists that the original occupants of the soil have an irresistible claim on the Government of this country for support, inasmuch as the presence of the colonists abridges their means of subsistence, whilst it furnishes to the public treasury a large revenue in the shape of fees for licences and assessments on stock, together with the very large sums paid for land seized by the Crown, and alienated to private individuals.
"That it appears to memorialists that the interests at once of the natives and the colonists would be most effectually promoted by the government reserving suitable portions of land within the territorial limits of the respective tribes, with the view of weaning them from their erratic habits, forming thereon depots for supplying them with provisions and clothing, under the charge of individuals of exemplary moral character, taking at the same time an interest in their welfare, and who would endeavour to instruct them in agricultural and other useful arts."--Extract from Memorial of the Settlers of the County of Grant, in the district of Port Phillip, to His Excellency Sir G. Gipps, in 1840.]
Surely if we acknowledge the first principles of justice, or if we admit the slightest claims of humanity on behalf of these debased, but harshly treated people, we are bound, in honour and in equity, to afford them that subsistence which we have deprived them of the power of providing for themselves.
It may, perhaps, be replied, and at first it might seem, with some appearance of speciousness, that all is done that can be done for them, that each of the Colonial Governments annually devotes a portion of its revenue to the improvement, instruction, and maintenance of the natives. So far this is very praiseworthy, but does it in any degree compensate for the evil inflicted?
The money usually voted by the councils of Government, towards defraying expenses incurred on behalf of the Aborigines of Australia, is but a very small per centage upon the sums that have been received for the sales of lands, and is principally expended in defraying the salaries of protectors, in supporting schools, providing food or clothing for one or two head stations, and perhaps supplying a few blankets once in the year to some of the outstations. Little is expended in the daily provisioning of the natives generally, and especially in the more distant country districts least populated by Europeans, but most densely occupied by natives, and where the very thinness of the European inhabitants precludes the Aborigines from resorting to the same sources to supply their wants, that are open to them in a town, or more thickly inhabited district. Such are those afforded by the charity of individuals, by the rewards received for performing trifling services of work, by the obtaining vast quantities of offal, or of broken victuals, which are always abundant in a country where animal food is used in excess, and where the heat of the climate daily renders much of it unfit for consumption in the family, and by others of a similar nature.
Such resources, however humiliating and pernicious they are in their effects, are not open to the tribes living in a district almost exclusively occupied by the sheep or cattle of the settler, and where the very numbers of the stock only more completely drive away the original game upon which the native had been accustomed to subsist, and hold out a greater temptation to him to supply his wants from the superabundance which he sees around him, belonging to those by whom he has been dispossessed. The following appropriate remarks are an extract from Report of Aborigines' Protection Society, of March, 1841, (published in the South Australian Register, 4th December, 1841.)
"Under that system it is obvious to every coloured man, even the least intelligent, that the extending settlements of the Europeans involve a sentence of banishment, and eventual extermination, upon his tribe and race. Major Mitchell, in his travels, refers to this apprehension on the part of the Aborigines--"White man come, Kangaroo go away"--from which as an inevitable consequence follows--"black man famished away." If, then, this appears a necessary result of the unjust, barbarous, unchristian mode of colonization pursued in New Holland, over-looking the other incidental, and more pointedly aggravating provocations, to the coloured man, associated with that system, how natural, in his case, is an enmity which occasionally visits some of the usurping race with death! We call the offence in him MURDER; but let the occasion be only examined, and we must discover that, in so designating it, we are imposing geographical, or national restrictions, upon the virtue of patriotism; or that in the mani-festations of that principle, we make no allowances for the influence on its features of the relative degradation or elevation of those among whom it is met.
"Our present colonization system renders the native and the colonizing races from necessity belligerents; and there can be no real peace, no real amity, no mutual security, so long as that system is not substituted by one reconciling the interest of both races. Colonists will fall before the spears and the waddies of incensed Aborigines, and they in return will be made the victims of 'summary justice.'
"In cases of executive difficulty, the force of popular prejudice will be apt to be too strong for the best intentioned Governor to withstand it; Europeans will have sustained injury; the strict forms of legal justice may be found of difficult application to a race outcast or degraded, although ORIGINALLY in a condition fitted to appreciate them, to benefit by them, and reflect their benefits upon others; impatient at this difficulty, the delay it may occasion, and the shelter from ultimate punishment, the temptation will ever be strong to revert to summary methods of proceeding; and thus, as in a circle, injustice will be found to flow reciprocal injury, and from injury injustice again, in another form. The source of all these evils, and of all this injustice, is the unreserved appropriation of native lands, and the denial, in the first instance of colonization, of equal civil rights. To the removal of those evils, so far as they can be removed in the older settlements, to their prevention in new colonies, the friends of the Aborigines are invoked to direct their energy; to be pacified with the attainment of nothing less; for nothing less will really suffice."
Can it be deemed surprising that a rude, uncivilized being, driven from his home, deprived of all his ordinary means of subsistence [Note 45 at end of para.], and pressed perhaps by a hostile tribe from behind, should occasionally be guilty of aggressions or injuries towards his oppressors? The wonder rather is, not that these things do sometimes occur, but that they occur so rarely.
[Note 45: "If you can still be generous to the conquered, relieve the hunger which drives us in despair to slaughter your flocks and the men who guard them. Our fields and forests, which once furnished us with abundance of vegetable and animal food, now yield us no more; they and their produce are yours; you prosper on our native soil, and we are famishing." --STRZELECKI'S N. S. WALES, p. 356.]
In addition to the many other inconsistencies in our conduct towards the Aborigines, not the least extraordinary is that of placing them, on the plea of protection, under the influence of our laws, and of making them British subjects. Strange anomaly, which by the former makes amenable to penalties they are ignorant of, for crimes which they do not consider as such, or which they may even have been driven to commit by our own injustice; and by the latter but mocks them with an empty sound, since the very laws under which we profess to place them, by their nature and construction are inoperative in affording redress to the injured.
[Note 46: "To subject savage tribes to the penalties of laws with which they are unacquainted, for offences which they, very possibly, regard as acts of justifiable retaliation for invaded rights, is a proceeding indefensible, except under circumstances of urgent and extreme necessity."--Fourth Report of the Colonization Commissioners, presented to the House of Commons, 29th July, 1840.
"The late act, declaring them naturalized as British subjects, has only rendered them legally amenable to the English criminal law, and added one more anomaly to all the other enactments affecting them. This naturalization excludes them from sitting on a jury, or appearing as witnesses, and entails a most confused form of judicial proceedings; all which, taken together, has made of the Aborigines of Australia a nondescript caste, who, to use their own phraseology, are 'neither black nor white.'"--Strzelecki's N. S. Wales.]
If, in addition to the many evils and disadvantages the natives must necessarily be subject to from our presence, we take still further into account the wrongs they are exposed to from the ill feeling towards them which has sometimes existed among the settlers, or their servants, on the outskirts of the country; the annoyances they are harassed by, even where this feeling does not exist, in being driven away from their usual haunts and pursuits (and this is a practice often adopted by the remote grazier as a mere matter of policy to avoid trouble or the risk of a collision); we shall find upon the whole that they have often just causes of offence, and that there are many circumstances connected with their crimes which, from the peculiar position they are placed in, may well require from us some mitigation of the punishment that would be exacted from Europeans for the same misdeeds.
Captain Grey has already remarked the strong prejudice and recklessness of human life which frequently exist on the part of the settlers with regard to the natives. Nor has this feeling been confined to Western Australia alone. In all the colonies, that I have been in, I have myself observed that a harsh and unjust tone has occasionally been adopted in speaking of the Aborigines; and that where a feeling of prejudice does not exist against them, there is too often a great indifference manifested as to their fate. I do not wish it to be understood that such is always the case; on the contrary, I know that the better, and right thinking part of the community, in all the colonies, not only disavow such feelings, but are most anxious, as far as lies in their power, to promote the interests and welfare of the natives. Still, there are always some, in every settlement, whose passions, prejudices, interests, or fears, obliterate their sense of right and wrong, and by whom these poor wanderers of the woods are looked upon as intruders in their own country, or as vermin that infest the land, and whose blood may be shed with as little compunction as that of the wild animals they are compared to.
By those who have heard the dreadful accounts current in Western Australia, and New South Wales, of the slaughter formerly committed by military parties, or by the servants [Note 47 at end of para.] of the settlers upon the Aborigines, in which it is stated that men, women, and children have been surprised, surrounded and shot down indiscriminately, at their camps at night; or who have heard such deeds, or other similar ones, justified or boasted of, it will readily be believed to what an extent the feeling I have alluded to has occasionally been carried, and to what excesses it has led. [Note 48 appears after Note 47, below]
[Note 47: The following extract from a reply of his Honour the Superintendent of Port Phillip to the representation made to his Honour by the settlers and inhabitants of the district of Port Fairy, in March 1842, shews that these frightful atrocities against the natives had not even then ceased.
"That the presence of a protector in your district, and other means of prevention hitherto employed, have not succeeded better than they have done in repressing aggression or retaliation, and have failed to establish a good understanding between the natives and the European settlers, is greatly to be deplored.
"As far as the local government has power, every practicable extension of these arrangements shall be made without delay; but, gentlemen, however harsh, a plain truth must be told, the destruction of European property, and even the occasional sacrifice of European life, by the hands of the savage tribes, among whom you live, if unprovoked and unrevenged, may justly claim sympathy and pity; but the feeling of abhorrence which one act of savage retaliation or cruelty on your part will rouse, must weaken, if not altogether obliterate every other, in the minds of most men; and I regret to state, that I have before me a statement presented in a form which I dare not discredit, shewing that such acts are perpetrated among you.
"It reveals a nightly attack upon a small number of natives, by a party of the white inhabitants of your district, and the murder of no fewer than three defenceless aboriginal women and a child, in their sleeping place; and this at the very time your memorial was in the act of signature, and in the immediate vicinity of the station of two of the parties who have signed it. Will not the commission of such crimes call down the wrath of God, and do more to check the prosperity of your district, and to ruin your prospects, than all the difficulties and losses under which you labour?" Mr. Sievewright's letter gives an account of this infamous transaction.
"WESTERN ABORIGINAL ESTABLISHMENT, THOLOR, 26TH FEBRUARY, 1842.
"Sir,--I have the honour to report that on the afternoon of the 24th instant, two aboriginal natives, named Pwe-bin-gan-nai, Calangamite, returned to this encampment, which they had left with their families on the 22nd, and reported 'that late on the previous evening, while they with their wives, two other females, and two children, were asleep at a tea-tree scrub, called One-one-derang, a party of eight white people on horseback surrounded them, dismounted, and fired upon them with pistols; that three women and a child had been thus killed, and the other female so severely wounded as to be unable to stand or be removed by them;' they had saved themselves and the child, named 'Uni bicqui-ang,' by flight, who was brought to this place upon their shoulders.
"At daybreak yesterday I proceeded to the spot indicated, and there found the dead bodies of three women, and a male child about three years of age; and also found a fourth woman dangerously wounded by gunshot wounds, and severely scorched on the limbs by the discharge of fire-arms.
"Having proceeded to the station of the Messrs. Osbrey and Smith, distant about 700 yards from where the bodies were found, and requested the presence of those gentlemen as witnesses, I proceeded to view the bodies, upon which were found the wounds as set forth in the accompanying report.
"All knowledge of this barbarous transaction is denied by the proprietors, overseer, and servants at the home station, so near to which the bodies were found, nor have I as yet obtained any information which may lead to the discovery of the perpetrators of these murders.
"I have, etc. (Signed) "C. W. SIEVEWRIGHT." James Croke, Esq., Crown Prosecutor," etc. etc. etc.
Description of Gun-shot Wounds upon the bodies of three Aboriginal Women and One Male Child found dead, and an Aboriginal Woman found wounded in a tea-tree scrub, near the Station of Messrs. Osbrey and Smith, Portland District, upon the 25th of February, 1842, by Assistant-Protector Sievewright.
"No. 1. Recognised by the assistant-protector as 'Wooi-goning,' wife of an Aboriginal native 'Pui-bui-gannei;' one gun-shot wound through the chest (a ball), and right thigh broken by a gun-shot wound (a ball).
"No. 2. Child (male); one gun-shot wound through the chest (a bullet), left thigh lacerated by some animal.
"No. 3. Woman big with child; one gun-shot wound through the chest (a bullet), left side scorched.
"No. 4. Woman; gun-shot wound through abdomen (a bullet), by right hip; gun-shot wound, left arm broken, (a bullet.)
"No. 5. Woman wounded; gun-shot wound in back (a ball), gun-shot through right hand (a ball).
"(Signed) "C. W. SIEVEWRIGHT."]
[Note 48: The belief on the part of the Home authorities that such deeds did occur, and their opinion, so many years ago, regarding them, may be gathered from the following extract from a despatch from Lord Glenelg to Governor Sir James Stirling, dated 23rd of July, 1835. "I perceive, with deep concern, that collisions still exist between the colonists and the natives.
"It is impossible, however, to regard such conflicts without regret and anxiety, when we recollect how fatal, in too many instances, our colonial settlements have proved to the natives of the places where they have been formed.
"It will be your duty to impress upon the settlers that it is the determination of the Government to visit any act of injustice or violence on the natives, with the utmost severity, and that in no case will those convicted of them, remain unpunished. Nor will it be sufficient simply to punish the guilty, but ample compensation must be made to the injured party, for the wrong received. You will make it imperative upon the officers of police never to allow any injustice or insult in regard to the natives to pass by unnoticed, as being of too trifling a character; and they should be charged to report to you, with punctuality, every instance of aggression or misconduct. Every neglect of this point of duty you will mark with the highest displeasure."
Such were the benevolent views entertained by the Government in England towards the Aborigines ten years ago, and it might be readily proved from many despatches of subsequent Secretaries of State to the different Governors, that such have been their feelings since, and yet how little has been done in ten years to give a practical effect to their good intentions towards the natives.]
Were other evidence necessary to substantiate this point, it would be only requisite to refer to the tone in which the natives are so often spoken of by the Colonial newspapers, to the fact that a large number of colonists in New South Wales, including many wealthy landed proprietors and magistrates, petitioned the Local Government on behalf of a party of convicts, found guilty on the clearest testimony of having committed one of the most wholesale, cold-blooded, and atrocious butcheries of the Aborigines ever recorded [Note 49 at end of para.], and to the acts of the Colonial Governments themselves, who have found it necessary, sometimes, to prohibit fire-arms at out-stations, and have been compelled to take away the assigned servants, or withdraw the depasturing licences of individuals, because they have been guilty of aggression upon the Aborigines.
[Note 49: Seven men were hanged for this offence, on the 18th of December, 1838. In the Sydney Monitor, published on the 24th or next issue after the occurrence, is the following paragraph:--
"The following conversation between two gentlemen took place in the military barrack square, on Tuesday, just after the execution of the seven murderers of the native blacks, and while General O'Connell was reviewing the troops of the garrison.
"COUNTRY GENTLEMAN.--So I find they have hanged these men. "TOWN GENTLEMAN. --They have." "COUNTRY GENTLEMAN.--Ah! hem, we are going on a safer game now. "TOWN GENTLEMAN. --Safer game! how do you mean?" "COUNTRY GENTLEMAN.--Why, we are poisoning the blacks; which is much better, and serve them right too!"
"We vouch for the truth of this conversation, and for the very words; and will prove our statement, if public justice should, in our opinion require it."
The following letter from His Honour the Superintendent of Port Philip shews, that even in 1843, suspicions were entertained in the colony, that this most horrible and inhuman cruelty towards the Aborigines had lately been practised there.
"Melbourne, 17th March, 1843.
"SIR,--I have the honour to report, for his Excellency's information, that in the month of December last, I received a letter from the Chief Protector, enclosing a communication received from Dr. Wotton, the gentleman in charge of the Aboriginal station at Mount Rouse, stating that a rumour had reached him that a considerable number of Aborigines had been poisoned at the station of Dr. Kilgour, near Port Fairy.
"I delayed communicating this circumstance at the time, as I expected the Chief Protector and his assistants would find it practicable to bring the crime home to the parties accused of having perpetrated it; but I regret to state, that every attempt to discover the guilty parties has hitherto proved ineffectual, and that although there may be strong grounds of suspicion that such a deed had been perpetrated, and that certain known parties in this district were the perpetrators, yet it seems nearly impossible to obtain any legal proof to bear on either one point or the other.
"I beg leave to enclose copies of two communications which I have received from Mr. Robinson on the subject.
"I have, etc. "(Signed) "C. J. LATROBE." "The Honourable the Colonial Secretary, etc. etc. etc."
Rumours of another similar occurrence existed in the settlements north of Sydney, about the same time. To the inquiries made on the subject, by the Government, the following letters refer.
"Moreton Bay, Zion's Hill, 14th January 1843.
"Sir,--In reply to your inquiry respecting the grounds on which I made mention in my journal, kept during a visit to the Bunga Bunga country, of a considerable number of blacks having been poisoned in the northern part of this district, I beg leave to state, that having returned from Sydney in the month of March 1842, I learnt, first, by my coadjutor, the Rev. Mr. Epper, that such a rumour was spreading, of which I have good reason to believe also his Excellency the Governor was informed during his stay at Moreton Bay. I learnt, secondly, by the lay missionaries, Messrs. Nique and Rode, who returned from an excursion to "Umpie-boang" in the first week of April, that natives of different tribes, who were collecting from the north for a fight, had related the same thing to them as a fact. Messrs. Nique and Rode have made this statement also in their diary, which is laid before our committee in Sydney. I learnt, thirdly, by the runaway Davis, when collecting words and phrases of the northern dialect from him, previous to my expedition to the Bunga Bunga country, that there was not the least doubt but such a deed had been done, and moreover that the relatives of the poisoned blacks, being in great fury, were going to revenge themselves. Davis considered it, therefore, exceedingly dangerous for us to proceed to the north, mentioning at the same time, that two white men had already been killed by blacks in consequence of poisoning. I ascertained likewise from him the number, 50 or 60.
"When inquiring of him whether he had not reported this fact to yourself, he replied, that both he, himself, and Bracewell, the other runaway, whom Mr. Petrie had brought back from the Wide Bay, had done so, and that you had stated it fully in your report to his Excellency the Governor, respecting himself and Bracewell.
"4. The natives who had carried our provisions up to Mr. Archer's station, made the same statement to us, as a reason why they would not accompany us any farther to the Bunga Bunga country.
"When writing down, therefore, my journal, I considered it unnecessary to make a full statement of all that had come to my knowledge since the month of March, concerning that most horrid event, or even to relate it as something new, as it was not only known several months since to the respective authorities, but also as almost every one at Moreton Bay supposed that an investigation would take place without delay.
"I have, etc. "(signed) "WILLIAM SCHMIDT, "Missionary.""S. Simpson, Esq., "Commissioner of Crown Lands, "Eagle Farm."
"WOOGAROO, MORETON BAY, 6TH MAY, 1843.
"Sir,--I have the honour to report, for the information of his Excellency, that during my excursion to the Bunga country, I have taken every opportunity of instituting an inquiry as to the truth of the alleged poisoning of some Aborigines at a sheep station in the north of this district. A report of the kind certainly exists among the two tribes I fell in with, namely, the Dallambarah and Coccombraral tribes, but as neither of them were present at the time, they could give me no circumstantial information whatever on the subject. The Giggabarah tribe, the one said to have suffered, I was unable to meet with. Upon inquiry at the stations to the north, I could learn nothing further than that they had been using arsenic very extensively for the cure of the scab, in which operation sheep are occasionally destroyed by some of the fluid getting down their throats; and as the men employed frequently neglect to bury the carcases, it is very possible that the Aborigines may have devoured them, particularly the entrails, which they are very fond of, and that hence some accident of the kind alluded to may have occurred without their knowledge.
"I have, etc. "(signed) S. SIMPSON, "Commissioner of Crown Lands."
"The Honourable E. D. Thomson, "Colonial Secretary."
For the sake of humanity I would hope that such unheard of atrocities cannot really have existed. That the bare suspicion even of such crimes should have originated and gained currency in more than one district of Australia, is of itself a fearful indication of the feeling among the lowest classes in the colonies, and of the harrowing deeds to which that might lead.
Extract from South Australian Registe, 10th of July, 1841, after the return of Major O'Halloran and a party of sixty-eight individuals, sent up the Murray to try and rescue property stolen by blacks. "In the mean time we cannot but think that the DISAPPOINTMENT SO GENERALLY EXPRESSED, because Major O'Halloran has returned 'WITHOUT FIRING A SHOT,' is somewhat unreasonable, seeing that in his presence the natives DID NOTHING TO WARRANT AN EXTREME MEASURE, and that there were no means of identifying either the robbers of Mr. Inman, or the murderers of Mr. Langhorne's servants. It is quite clear that a legally authorised English force could not be permitted to fire indiscriminately upon the natives AS SOME PERSONS THINK they ought to have done, or to fire at all, save when attacked, or under circumstances in which any white subject of the Queen might be shot at. We KNOW that many overland parties HAVE NOT HESITATED TO FIRE AT THE NATIVES WHEREVER THEY APPEARED; and it is possible that the tribes now hostilely disposed may have received some provocation."]
The following extract from a letter addressed by the Chief Protector of the Port Phillip district, Mr. Robinson, to his Honour the Superintendent at Melbourne, shews that officer's opinion of the feeling of the lower class of the settlers' servants, with regard to the Aborigines in Australia Felix.
"Anterior to my last expedition I had seen a large portion of this province; I have now seen nearly the entire, and, in addition, have made myself thoroughly acquainted with the character of its inhabitants.
"The settlers are, for the most part, a highly respectable body of men, many, to my knowledge, deeply commiserating the condition of the natives; a few have been engaged in the work of their amelioration; these, however, are but isolated instances; the majority are averse to having the natives, and drive them from their runs.
"Nothing could afford me greater pleasure than to see a reciprocity of interest established between the settler and aborigine, and it would delight me to see the settlers engaged in the great work of their amelioration; and though on the part of the settlers, a large majority would readily engage, I nevertheless feel persuaded that, until a better class of peasantry be introduced, and a code of judicature suited to the condition of the natives, its practicability, as a general principle, is unattainable.
"In the course of my wanderings through the distant interior, I found it necessary, in order to arrive at a correct judgment, to observe the relative character of both classes, i. e. the European and the Aborigine. The difficulty on the part of the Aborigine by proper management can be overcome; but the difficulty on the part of the depraved white man is of far different character, and such as to require that either their place should be supplied by a more honest and industrious peasantry, or that a more suitable code of judicature be established, to restrain their nefarious proceedings with reference to the aboriginal natives.
"I found, on my last expedition, that a large majority of the white servants employed at the stock stations in the distant interior were, for the most part, men of depraved character; and it was with deep regret that I observed that they were all armed; and in the estimation of some of these characters, with whom I conversed, I found that the life of a native was considered to be of no more value than that of a wild dog. The settlers complained generally of the bad character of their men. The saying is common among them, 'That the men and not we are the masters.' The kind of treatment evinced towards the aboriginal natives in remote parts of the interior by this class of persons, may be easily imagined; but as I shall have occasion more fully to advert to this topic in the report I am about to transmit to the Government, I shall defer for the present offering further observations.
"The bad character of the white servants is a reason assigned by many settlers for keeping the natives from their stations. At a few establishments, viz. Norman M'Leod's, Baillie's, Campbell's, Lenton's, and Urquhart's, an amicable and friendly relation has been maintained for several years; the Aborigines are employed and found useful. I visited these stations; and the proprietors assured me the natives had never done them any injury; the natives also spoke in high terms of these parties. There are other settlers also who have rendered assistance in improving the condition of the natives, and to whom I shall advert in my next report.
"Whether the proprietors of these establishments devote more attention, or whether their white servants are of less nefarious character than others, I am not prepared to say; but the facts I have stated are incontrovertible, and are sufficient to shew the reclaimability of the natives, when proper persons are engaged, and suitable means had recourse to. I cannot but accede to the proposition, namely, that of holding out inducements to all who engage in the amelioration of the aboriginal natives. Those who have had experience, who have been tried and found useful, ought to have such inducements held out to them as would ensure a continuance of their appointments, the more especially as it has always been found difficult to obtain suitable persons for this hazardous and peculiar service."
The following extract from another letter, also addressed to his Honour the Superintendent, shews the opinions and feelings of the writer, a Magistrate of the Colony, and a Commissioner of Crown Lands, in the Geelong district.
"In offering my candid opinion, I submissively beg leave to state, that for the last three years, on all occasions, I have been a friend to the natives; but from my general knowledge of their habits of idleness, extreme cunning, vice, and villany, that it is out of the power of all exertion that can be bestowed on them to do good by them; and I further beg leave to state, that I can plainly see the general conduct of the native growing worse, and, if possible, more useless, and daily more daring. One and all appear to consider that no punishment awaits them. This idea has latterly been instilled into their minds with, I should think, considerable pains, and also that the white men should be punished for the least offence.
"In reply to the latter part of your letter, I beg leave to bring to your notice that, at considerable risk, two years ago, I apprehended a native for the murder of one of Mr. Learmonth's men, near Bunengang. He was committed to Sydney gaol, and at the expiration of a year he was returned to Melbourne to be liberated, and is now at large. In the case of Mr. Thomson's, that I apprehended two, and both identified by the men who so fortunately escaped. It is a difficult thing to apprehend natives, and with great risk of life on both sides. On the Grange, and many parts of the country, it would be impossible to take them; AND IN MY OPINION, the only plan to bring them to a fit and proper state is to insist on the gentlemen in the country to protect their property, AND TO DEAL WITH SUCH USELESS SAVAGES ON THE SPOT."
Captain Grey bears testimony to similar feelings and occurrences in Western Australia. In speaking of capturing some natives, he says, vol. 2. p. 351. "It was necessary that I should proceed with great caution, in order not to alarm the guilty parties when they saw us approaching, in which case, I should have had no chance of apprehending them, and I did not intend to adopt the popular system of shooting them when they ran away." And again, at page 356, he says, "It was better that I, an impartial person, should see that they were properly punished for theft, than that the Europeans should fire indiscriminately upon them, as had lately been done, in another quarter."
Even in South Australia, where the Colonists have generally been more concentrated, and where it might naturally be supposed there would be less likelihood of offenders of this kind escaping detection and punishment, there are not wanting instances of unnecessary and unprovoked, and sometimes of wanton injury upon the natives. In almost all cases of this description, it is quite impracticable from the inadmissibility of native evidence, or from some other circumstances, to bring home conviction to the guilty. [Note 50 at end of para.] On the other hand, where natives commit offences against Europeans, if they can be caught, the punishment is certain and severe. Already since the establishment of South Australia as a colony, six natives have been tried and hung, for crimes against Europeans, and many others have been shot or wounded, by the police and military in their attempts to capture or prevent their escape. No European has, however, yet paid the penalties of the law, for aggressions upon the Aborigines, though many have deserved to do so. The difficulty consists in legally bringing home the offence, or in refuting the absurd stories that are generally made up in justification of it.
[Note 50: Vide Chapter 9, of Notes on the Aborigines.]
A single instance or two will be sufficient, in illustration of the impunity which generally attends these acts of violence. On the 25th January, 1843, the sheep at a station of Mr. Hughes, upon the Hutt river, had been scattered during the night, and some of them were missing. It was concluded the natives had been there, and taken them, as the tracks of naked feet were said to have been found near the folds. Upon these grounds two of Mr. Hughes' men, and one belonging to Mr. Jacobs, another settler in the neighbourhood, took arms, and went out to search for the natives. About a mile from the station they met with one native and his wife, whom they asked to accompany them back to the station, promising bread and flour for so doing. They consented to go, but were then escorted AS PRISONERS, the two men of Mr. Hughes' guarding the male native, and Mr. Jacobs' servant (a person named Gregory) the female. Naturally alarmed at the predicament they were in, the man ran off, pursued by his two guards, but escaped. The woman took another direction, pursued by Gregory, who recaptured her, and she was said to have then seized Gregory's gun, and to have struck at him several blows with a heavy stick, upon which, being afraid that he would be overcome, HE SHOT HER. Mr. Hughes, the owner of the lost sheep, came up a few moments after the woman was shot, and heard Gregory's story concerning it, but no marks of his receiving any blows were shewn. On the 23rd of March, he was tried for the offence of manslaughter; there did not appear the slightest extenuating circumstances beyond his own story, and his master giving him a good character, and yet the jury, without retiring, returned a verdict of Not Guilty!
At the very next sittings of the Supreme Court Criminal Sessions, another and somewhat analogous case appeared. The following remarks were made by His Honour Judge Cooper, to the Grand Jury respecting it: "There was also a case of manslaughter to be tried, and he called their attention to this, because it did not appear in the Calendar. The person charged was named Skelton, and as appeared from the depositions, was in custody of some sheep, when an alarm of the rushing of the sheep being given, he looked and saw something climbing over the fence, and subsequently something crawling along the ground, upon which he fired off his piece, and hit the object, which upon examination turned out to be a native. The night was dark, and the native was brought into the hut, where he died the next day. He could not help observing, that cases of this kind were much more frequent than was creditable to the reputation of the Colony. Last Sessions a man was tried and acquitted of the charge of killing a native woman. That verdict was a very merciful one, but not so merciful, he trusted, as to countenance the idea that the lives of the natives are held too cheaply. The only observation that he would make upon this case was, that it was ONE OF GREAT SUSPICION."
[Note 51: I believe this case was not brought to trial.]
Other cases have occurred in which some of the circumstances have come under my own notice, and when Europeans have committed wanton aggressions on the Aborigines, and have then made up a plausible story to account for what had taken place, but where, from obvious circumstances, it was quite impossible to disprove or rebut their tale, however improbable it might be. In the Port Phillip District in 1841, Mr. Chief Protector thus writes to the local Government.
"Already appalling collisions have happened between the white and aboriginal inhabitants, and, although instances, it is possible, have transpired when natives have been the aggressors, yet it will be found that the largest majority originated with the Europeans. The lives of aboriginal natives known to have been destroyed are many, and if the testimony of natives be admissible, the amount would be great indeed; but even in cases where the Aborigines are said to be the aggressors, who can tell what latent provocation existed for perpetrating it? Of the numerous cases that could be cited, the following from a recent journal of an assistant protector, Mr. Parker, of the Lodden, will suffice to shew the insurmountable difficulty, I may add the impossibility, of bringing the guilty parties to justice, for in nine cases, I may say, out of ten, where natives are concerned, the only evidence that can be adduced is that of the Aborigines.
"This evidence is not admissible. Indeed the want of a code, suited to the Aborigines, is now so strongly felt, and of such vital importance to the welfare and existence of the natives, that I earnestly trust that this important subject may be brought under the early consideration and notice of Her Majesty's Government.
"The following is the extract from Mr. Parker's journal referred to: 'On the 8th of March 1841, I proceeded to the Pyrenees to investigate the circumstances connected with the slaughter of several Aborigines, by a Mr. Frances. On the 9th and 10th I fell in with different parties of natives. From the last of these I obtained some distressing statements, as to the slaughter of the blacks; they gave me the names of seven individuals shot by Mr. Frances within the last six months. I found, however, no legal evidence attainable. The only persons present in the last and most serious affair with the Aborigines, which took place in December of last year, were Frances, a person named Downes, and a stock-keeper in Melbourne. No other admissible evidence of the death of these poor people can be obtained than what Frances's written statement conveys. In that he reports that he and the person before named WENT OUT IN CONSEQUENCE OF SEEING THE BUSH ON FIRE, AND FELL IN SUDDENLY WITH SOME NATIVES, ON WHOM THEY FIRED AND KILLED FOUR. The natives say six were slain, and their information on that point is more to be depended on. Owing to the legal disabilities of the Aborigines, this case must be added with many others which have passed without judicial notice. I cannot, however, but wish that squatting licenses were withheld from persons who manifest such an utter disregard of human life as Mr. Frances, even on his own shewing, has done.'
"And in this latter sentiment, under existing circumstances, I most cordially agree. In Frances' case, the PERPETRATOR ADMITS his having SHOT FOUR ABORIGINES, and for aught that is shewn to the contrary, it was AN UNPROVOKED AGGRESSION. The natives, whose testimony Mr. Parker states, can be relied upon, affirm that six were slain, and these within the brief period of six months.
"In my last expedition I visited the country of the 'Barconedeets,' the tribe attacked by Frances; of these I found a few sojourning with the "Portbullucs,' a people inhabiting the country near Mount Zero, the northernmost point of the Grampians. These persons complained greatly of the treatment they had received, and confirmed the statement made to the sub-protector by the other natives. The following are a few of the collisions, from authentic documents brought under the notice of this department, that have happened between settlers and Aborigines, and are respectfully submitted for the information of the Government.
"CASES.--CHARLES WEDGE AND OTHERS.--Five natives killed and others wounded at the Grampians.
"AYLWARD AND OTHERS.--Several natives killed and others wounded at the Grampians. In this case Aylward deposed, 'that there must have been a great many wounded and several killed, as he saw blood upon the grass, and in the tea-tree two or three dead bodies.'
"MESSRS. WHYTE'S FIRST COLLISION.--William Whyte deposed that 30 natives were present, and they were all killed but two, and one of these it is reported died an hour after of his wounds.
"DARLOT.--One native shot. Two natives shot near Portland Bay by the servants of the Messrs. Henty.
"HUTTON AND MOUNTED POLICE.--The written report of this case states, 'that the party overtook the aborigines at the junction of the 'Campaspee;' they fired, and it is stated, that to the best of the belief of the party, five or six were killed.' In the opinion of the sub-protector a greater number were slain.
"MESSRS. WINTER AND OTHERS.--On this occasion five natives were killed.
"One black shot by Frances.
"MUNROE AND POLICE.--Two blacks shot and others wounded.
"The following from Lloyd's deposition:--'We fired on them; I have no doubt some were killed; there were between forty and fifty natives.'
"BY PERSONS UNKNOWN.--A native of the Coligan tribe killed by white persons.
"MESSRS. WEDGE AND OTHERS.--Three natives killed and others wounded.
"Names of Taylor and Lloyd are mentioned as having shot a black at Lake Colac.
"WHYTE'S SECOND COLLISION.--ALLAN'S CASE.--Two natives shot.
"Taylor was overseer of a sheep station in the Western district, and was notorious for killing natives. No legal evidence could be obtained against this nefarious individual. The last transaction in which he was concerned, was of so atrocious a nature, that he thought fit to abscond, and he has not been heard of since. No legal evidence was attainable in this latter case. There is no doubt the charges preferred were true, for in the course of my inquiries on my late expedition, I found a tribe, a section of the Jarcoorts, totally extinct, and it was affirmed by the natives that Taylor had destroyed them. The tribes are rapidly diminishing. The 'Coligans,' once a numerous and powerful people, inhabiting the fertile region of Lake 'Colac,' are now reduced, all ages and sexes, under forty, and these are still on the decay. The Jarcoorts, inhabiting the country to the west of the great lake 'Carangermite,' once a very numerous and powerful people, are now reduced to under sixty. But time would fail, and I fear it would be deemed too prolix, were I to attempt to particularise in ever so small a degree, the previous state, condition, and declension of the original inhabitants of so extensive a province."
Upon the same subject, His Honour the Superintendent of Port Phillip thus writes:--
"On this subject, I beg leave to remark that great impediments evidently do interpose themselves in the way of instituting proper judicial inquiry into the causes and consequences of the frequent acts of collision between the settlers and the aboriginal natives, and into the conduct of the settlers on such occasions. I am quite ready to lament with the Protectors, that numerous as the cases have unfortunately been in which the lives of the Aborigines have been taken in this district, IN NO SINGLE INSTANCE HAS THE SETTLER BEEN BROUGHT BEFORE THE PROPER TRIBUNAL."
Many similar instances might be adduced to shew the little chance there is of evidence enough being procurable, even to cause the aggressor to be put upon his trial, still less to produce his conviction.
Independently of the instances of wanton outrage, which sometimes are perpetrated on the outskirts of the settled districts by the lowest and most abandoned of our countrymen, there are occasions also, when equal injuries are inflicted unintentionally, from inexperience or indiscretion, on the part of those whose duty it is to protect rather than destroy, when the innocent have been punished instead of the guilty [Note 52 at end of para.], and thus the very efforts made to preserve peace and good order, have inadvertently become the means of subverting them.
[Note 52: Upon collisions of this character, Lord John Russell remarks in his despatch, 21st December, 1839, to Sir G. Gipps: "In the case now before me the object of capturing offenders was entirely lost sight of, and shots were fired at men who were apparently only guilty of jumping into the water to escape from an armed pursuit. I am, however, happy to acknowledge that you appear to have made every practicable exertion for the prevention of similar calamities in future, and I approve the measures adopted by you for that purpose. You cannot overrate the solicitude of Her Majesty's Government on the subject of the Aborigines of New Holland. It is impossible to contemplate the condition and the prospects of that unfortunate race without the deepest commiseration. I am well aware of the many difficulties which oppose themselves to the effectual protection of these people, and especially of those which must originate from the exasperation of the settlers, on account of aggressions on their property, which are not the less irritating, because they are nothing else than the natural results of the pernicious examples held out to the Aborigines, and of the many wrongs of which they have been the victims. Still it is impossible that the Government should forget that the original aggression was our own; and that we have never yet performed the sacred duty of making any systematic or considerable attempt to impart to the former occupiers of New South Wales, the blessings of Christianity, or the knowledge of the arts and advantages of civilized life."]
Several very lamentable instances of this kind, have occurred in Port Lincoln. The following is one among others. Soon after the murder of Messrs. Biddle and Brown, a party of soldiers was sent over to try and capture the aggressors. In one of their attempts a native guide was procured from the Eastern tribe, who promised to conduct them to where the murderers were. The party consisting of the military and their officer, the police, a settler, and the missionary, in all twelve or fourteen persons, set off towards Coffin's Bay, following as they supposed upon the track of the murders. Upon reaching the coast some natives were seen fishing in the water, and the party was at once spread out in a kind of semicircle, among the scrub, to close upon and capture them; the officer, missionary, and guide, being stationed near the centre. As the party advanced nearer, the guide saw that he was mistaken in the group before him, and that they were not the guilty parties, but friends. The officer called out not to fire, but unfortunately from the distance the men were at, and the scrubby nature of the country, he was not heard or attended to. A shot was fired, one of the natives sprung up convulsively in the water, walked on shore and fell down, exclaiming whilst dying, "me Kopler, me good man," and such indeed it proved. He was one of a friendly tribe, and a particular protege of the missionary's, having taken the name of Kopler from his German servant who was so called.
The other natives at once came forward to their dying friend, scornfully motioning away his murderers, fearless alike of the foes around them, and regardless of their ill-timed attempts to explain the fatal mistake. Will it be credited, that at such a scene as this the soldiers were indulging in coarse remarks, or brutal jests, upon the melancholy catastrophe; and comparing the last convulsive spring of the dying man to a salmon leaping in the water. Yet this I was assured was the case by the Government Resident at Port Lincoln, from when I received this account.
Another melancholy and unfortunate case of the same nature occurred at Port Lincoln, on the 11th of April, 1844, where a native was shot by a policeman, for attempting to escape from custody, when taken in charge on suspicion of being implicated in robbing a stranded vessel. An investigation was made into this case by the Commissioner of Police, when it was stated in the depositions, that attempts at rescue were made by the other natives. Upon these grounds, I believe, it was considered that the policeman was justified in what he did.
The following extract relating to this subject, is from a letter addressed to a gentleman in Adelaide, by the Rev. C. Schurmann, one of the German Missionaries, who has for some years past been stationed among the Port Lincoln natives, and is intimately acquainted with their language.
[Note 53: Without adopting the tone of this letter, and which in some respects I cannot approve of, I believe the writer to be deeply interested in the welfare of the Aborigines, and strongly impressed with a conviction of the evils and injuries to which they are subject from our anomalous position with regard to them. I have quoted it, therefore, not for the purpose of casting imputations on the Government, but to shew how powerless they are, and how frequently, under the existing system in force with respect to the Aborigines, those very measures which were conceived and entered upon with the best intentions, produce in their result the most unmitigated evils.]
"You will probably recollect, that some time ago (I think it was in the month of May) the Adelaide newspapers contained a short notice of a Port Lincoln native having been shot by the police in self-defence, and a letter in the 'Observer,' mentioned another as being shot by Mr.----, but as the charitable correspondent added, 'Unfortunately only in the arm, instead of through the body.' From these statements one would infer that the parties concerned in these transactions were without blame, being perfectly justified--the one to protect his life, and the other his property. However, since my return to Port Lincoln, I have learned that both tales run very differently when told according to truth. I address myself, therefore, to you, with the true facts of the transactions, as I have learned them. partly from the settlers themselves, partly from the natives. My motive for so doing is to case my own mind, and to gratify the interest which I know you take in the Aborigines of this country.
"The man shot by the police was named Padlalta, and was of so mild and inoffensive a disposition, that he was generally noticed by the settlers on that very account, several of whom I have heard say since, it was a pity that some other native had not been hit in his stead. The same man was captured last year by Major O'llalloran's party, but was set at liberty as soon as I came up and testified his innocence, for which the poor fellow kissed my hand near a dozen times.
"The day before he met his death he was as usual in the town, doing little jobs for the inhabitants, to get bread or other food. On the evening when he was killed, he had encamped with about half a dozen other natives on the northern side of Happy Valley, a short mile from the town. The police who were sent by the Government Resident to see what number of natives were at the camp state, that while searching the man's wallet, he seized hold of one gun, and when the other policeman came up to wrest it from him, he the native grasped the other gun too. In the scuffle that ensued, one of the guns went off, when the other natives who had fled returned and presented their spears. They then shot the native who held the gun.
"Now this statement is a very strange one, when it is considered that the native was a very spare and weak man, so that either of the police ought to have been able to keep him at arm's length; but to say that he seized both their guns is beyond all credibility. The natives were sitting down when the police arrived. How they could therefore find a wallet upon the murdered man, I cannot conceive; since the natives never have their wallets slung, except when moving; and it certainly is not probable, that the man, in spite of the fright he is admitted to have been in, should have thought of taking up his wallet.
"The wallet is said to have contained some sovereigns, taken from the cutter Kate, which was wrecked some time previous to this affair, about forty miles up the coast, and to have been one of those marked by the police, at a native camp near the wreck from which the natives had been scared away, leaving all their things behind. But if the murdered native had taken the sovereigns, why were they not then in his wallet, or why was the wallet not examined the day before when he was in town? [Note 54 at end of para.] I think that there is little doubt that the police found no wallet at all upon the native, and that they coined away one of those found at the camp upon him, with a view to incriminate him."
[Note 54: There cannot be a greater act of injustice towards the natives than that of applying the English law to them with respect to stolen property. Any one who knows any thing of their habits, and the custom prevalent amongst them, of giving any European clothing, or other articles they may acquire, from one to another, must be fully aware how little the fact of their being found in possession of stolen property is just evidence against them. Articles such as I have mentioned, often pass, in a very short time, through the hands of three or four individuals, and perhaps even through as many tribes.]
"Another native, Charley, who was present when the said affair took place, tells me, that the police sneaked upon, and fired at them, while sitting round the fire; [Note 55 at end of para.] that he jumped up, and endeavoured to make himself known, as a friendly native, by saying, "Yarri (that is the name the natives have given to one of the police), Yarri, I Charley, I Charley,"--but that the effect produced had been the pointing of a gun at him, when of course he ran away. That any of the natives returned, and poised their spears, he firmly denies; but accounts for the murder, by supposing that the dead man made resistance, and offered to spear his assailants. He moreover says, that Padlalta would not have died in consequence of the first shot, but that the police fired repeatedly, which agrees with the settlers, who say they heard three shots. When the bloody deed had been committed (a ball had passed right through his body), the cruel perpetrators ran home, leaving the murdered man helpless."
[Note 55: There must, I think, be some mistake here in the phrascology. I cannot think any of the police would fire upon a small party of friendly natives whilst unresisting. The probability is, that they surrounded the natives to make prisoners, and fired upon being resisted. This must generally occur if the police have positive orders to make captures. Natives, not very much in contact with Europeans, will almost always resist an attempt to make prisoners of them, or will try to escape. Very many have, at various times, met their death under such circumstances; and too often it has occurred, that the innocent have been the suffering parties. This shews the absurdity of applying European customs and laws to a people situated as the Australian natives are. It shews, too, the necessity of altering our present system and policy towards them, to one that will exercise sufficient influence over them to induce them to give up offenders themselves. I believe such a system may be devised.--Vide Chapter IX.]
"Some time after, a party of three settlers went to the spot, one of whom he recognized, and claimed his acquaintance, and perhaps assistance, by mentioning the party's Christian name; but, alas! no good Samaritan was found amongst these three; they all passed by on the other side, without alleviating his pain, moistening his parched lips, warming his shivering limbs, or aiding him in any way whatever. There he lay a whole cold and long winter night, without a fire to warm him, or a soul to talk to him. Next morning he was found still alive, but died on the way into town, where he was buried in the jail yard, like a condemned felon.
"What awful and melancholy reflections crowd upon one's mind in thinking on this transaction. But what conclusians must a poor people, whom a Christian and civilized nation calls savages, arrive at, with such facts before them.
"The other native, wounded by Mr.--in the arm, was doubtless of the party who attacked the flock; but it must have been some hours after that he was shot, for the shepherd had to come home with the flock to inform him of the occurrence, and then search and pursuit had to be made, during which he was overtaken. He is a stupid idiotic sort of man, so that the natives have not deemed him worthy of receiving the honours of their ceremonies, and still call him a boy, or youth, although he is an oldish man.
"On another occasion, when an uninhabited hut, with some wheat in it, had been broken into by some unknown natives, a party went in search of the offenders. It was night when they came on a camp, on the opposite side of the lake to where the hut stands; the natives, acting upon the first impulse, and warned by frequent examples, ran away, when two of the party snapped their pieces, but providentially both guns missed fire. The natives, however, soon took confidence, and returned, when it was found that two of the most orderly and useful men would have been shot if the guns had gone off. The party took upon themselves to make one of them prisoner, but of course did not venture to bring him before the magistrate.
"These facts incontestably prove, that, notwithstanding the Aborigines are called British subjects, and in spite of the so-called protection system, there is no shadow of protection for them, while they are debarred from the first and most important of all liberties, namely, that of being heard in a Court of civil Justice.
"Several instances have occurred during my residence in this district, in which natives have been arraigned before the administrators of the law, although I was morally convinced of their innocence; in other cases, they have sought redress through me, for wanton attacks on their person and lives, without being listened to.
"Only a few weeks ago a native was very nearly being taken up, on the charge of having thrown a spear at Mr. Smith's shepherd, without, however, any felonious intent, the distance being too great. This circumstance saved the man, or else he would, no doubt, have been tried and found guilty on the shepherd's evidence, who would not allow that he could be mistaken in the individual, although the accused native came boldly into town and court (a circumstance that has never before occurred since I have known these natives), although he was an intimate friend of the shepherd and his wife; and although all the other natives could prove where he had been at the time of the attack on the flock, and state who were the guilty parties.
"For those who have had an opportunity of observing the Aborigines in their original state, it is not very difficult to distinguish the guilty from the innocent, for they are a simple-minded race, little skilled in the arts of dissimulation.
"It is bad enough that a great part of the colonists are inimical to the natives; it is worse that the law, as it stands at present, does not extend its protection to them; but it is too bad when the press lends its influence to their destruction. Such, however, is undoubtedly the case. When Messrs. Biddle and Brown were murdered, the newspapers entertained their readers week after week with the details of the bloody massacre, heaping a profusion of vile epithets upon the perpetrators. But of the slaughter by the soldiers, (who killed no less than four innocent natives, while they captured not one guilty party), among the tribes who had had nothing to do with the murders--of the treachery of attacking in the darkness of the night, a tribe who had the day before been hunting kangaroo with their informers, when one of the former guides to the magistrates' pursuing party was killed amongst others; of the wanton outrage on the mutilated body of one of the victims;--of these things the press was as silent as the grave."
Without attempting to enlarge more fully upon the subjects entered upon in the preceding pages, I trust that I have sufficiently shewn that the character of the Australian natives has been greatly misrepresented and maligned, that they are not naturally more irreclaimably vicious, revengeful, or treacherous than other nations, but on the contrary, that their position with regard to Europeans, places them under so many disadvantages, subjects them to so many injuries, irritates them with so many annoyances, and tempts them with so many provocations, that it is a matter of surprise, not that they sometimes are guilty of crime, but that they commit it so rarely.
If I have in the least degree succeeded in establishing that such is the case, it must be evident that it is incumbent upon us not only to make allowances when pronouncing an opinion on the character or the crimes of the Aborigines; but what is of far greater and more vital importance, as far as they are concerned, to endeavour to revise and improve such parts of our system and policy towards them as are defective, and by better adapting these to the peculiar circumstances of this people, at once place them upon juster and more equal terms, and thus excite a reasonable hope that some eventual amelioration may be produced, both in their moral and physical condition.
[Note 56: "We say distinctly and deliberately that nothing comparatively has yet been done--that the natives have hitherto acquired nothing of European civilization, but European vices and diseases, and that the speedy extinction of the whole race is inevitable, save by the introduction of means for their civilization on a scale much more comprehensive and effectual than any yet adopted."--Leading Article in South Australian Register, 1st August, 1840.]
I shall now proceed to give an account of the appearance, habits, mode of life, means of subsistance, social relations, government, ceremonies, superstitions, numbers, languages, etc. etc. of the natives of Australia, so as to afford some insight into the character and circumstances of this peculiar race, to exhibit the means hitherto adopted for, and the progress made in attempting, their civilization, and to shew the effects produced upon them by a contact with Europeans.
Chapter II
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE--DRESS--CHARACTER--HABITS OF LIFE--MEETINGS OF TRIBES--WARS--DANCES--SONGS.
The Aborigines of Australia, with whom Europeans have come in contact, present a striking similarity to each other in physical appearance and structure; and also in their general character, habits, and pursuits. Any difference that is found to exist is only the consequence of local circumstances or influences, and such as might naturally be expected to be met with among a people spread over such an immense extent of country. Compared with other aboriginal races, scattered over the face of the globe, the New Hollander appears to stand alone.
The male is well built and muscular, averaging from five to six feet in height, with proportionate upper and lower extremities. The anterior lobes of the brain are fairly developed, so as to give a facial angle, far from being one of the most acute to be found amongst the black races. The eyes are sunk, the nose is flattened, and the mouth wide. The lips are rather thick, and the teeth generally very perfect and beautiful, though the dental arrangement is sometimes singular, as no difference exists in many between the incisor and canine teeth. The neck is short, and sometimes thick, and the heel resembles that of Europeans. The ankles and wrists are frequently small, as are also the hands and feet. The latter are well formed and expanded, but the calves of the legs are generally deficient. Some of the natives in the upper districts of the Murray, are, however, well formed in this respect. In a few instances, natives attain to a considerable corpulency. The men have fine broad and deep chests, indicating great bodily strength, and are remarkably erect and upright in their carriage, with much natural grace and dignity of demeanour. The eye is generally large, black, and expressive, with the eye-lashes long.
When met with for the first time in his native wilds there is frequently a fearless intrepidity of manner, an ingenuous openness of look, and a propriety of behaviour about the aboriginal inhabitant of Australia, which makes his appearance peculiarly prepossessing.
In the female the average height is about five feet, or perhaps a little under. The anterior part of the brain is more limited than in the male; the apex of the head is carried further back; the facial angle is more acute; and the extremities are more attenuated. The latter circumstance may probably be accounted for from the fact, that the females have to endure, from a very early age, a great degree of hardship, privation, and ill-treatment. Like most other savages the Australian looks upon his wife as a slave. To her belongs the duty of collecting and preparing the daily food, of making the camp or hut for the night, of gathering and bringing in firewood, and of procuring water. She must also attend to the children; and in travelling carry all the moveable property and frequently the weapons of her husband. In wet weather she attends to all the outside work, whilst her lord and master is snugly seated at the fire. If there is a scarcity of food she has to endure the pangs of hunger, often, perhaps, in addition to ill-treatment or abuse. No wonder, then, that the females, and especially the younger ones, (for it is then they are exposed to the greatest hardships,) are not so fully or so roundly developed in person as the men. Yet under all these disadvantages this deficiency does not always exist. Occasionally, though rarely, I have met with females in the bloom of youth, whose well-proportioned limbs and symmetry of figure might have formed a model for the sculptor's chisel. In personal appearance the females are, except in early youth, very far inferior to the men. When young, however, they are not uninteresting. The jet-black eyes, shaded by their long, dark lashes, and the delicate and scarcely-formed features of incipient womanhood give a soft and pleasing expression to a countenance that might often be called good-looking--occasionally even pretty.
The colour of the skin, both in the male and female, is generally black, or very darkly tinged. The hair is either straight or curly, but never approaching to the woolliness of the negro. It is usually worn short by both sexes, and is variously ornamented at different periods of life. Sometimes it is smeared with red ochre and grease; at other times adorned with tufts of feathers, the tail of the native dog, kangaroo teeth, and bandages or nets of different kinds.
[Note 57: The same fondness for red paint, ornaments of skins, tufts of feathers, etc., is noticed by Catlin as prevalent among the American Indians, and by Dieffenbach as existing among the New Zealanders.]
When the head of the native is washed clean, and purified from the odour of the filthy pigment with which it is bedaubed, the crop of hair is very abundant, and the appearance of it beautiful, being a silken, glossy, and curly black. Great pains are, however, used to destroy or mar this striking ornament of nature.
Without the slightest pride of appearance, so far as neatness or cleanliness is concerned, the natives are yet very vain of their own rude decorations, which are all worn for EFFECT. A few feathers or teeth, a belt or band, a necklace made of the hollow stem of some plant, with a few coarse daubs of red or white paint, and a smearing of grease, complete the toilette of the boudoir or the ball-room. Like the scenery of a panorama, they are then seen to most advantage at a distance; for if approached too closely, they forcibly remind us of the truth of the expression of the poet, that "nature unadorned is adorned the most."
The body dress is simple; consisting of the skins of the opossum, the kangaroo, or the wallabie, when they can be procured. A single garment only is used, made in the form of an oblong cloak, or coverlet; by the skins being stretched out and dried in the sun, and then sewn together with the sinews of the emu, etc. The size of the cloak varies according to the industry of the maker, or the season of the year. The largest sized ones are about six feet square, but the natives frequently content themselves with one not half this size, and in many cases are without it altogether. The cloak is worn with the fur side outwards, and is thrown over the back and left shoulder, and pinned on in front with a little wooden peg; the open part is opposite the right side, so as to leave the right arm and shoulder quite unconfined, in the male; the female throws it over the back and left shoulder, and brings it round under the right arm-pit, and when tied in front by a string passing round the cloak and the back, a pouch is formed behind, in which the child is always carried. [Note 58 at end of para.] In either if the skin be a handsome one, the dress is very pretty and becoming.
[Note 58: A similar custom prevails among the women of the American Indians.--CATLIN. vol. ii. p. 132.]
On the sea coast, where the country is barren, and the skins of animals cannot readily be procured, sea-weed or rushes are manufactured into garments, with considerable ingenuity. In all cases the garments worn by day constitute the only covering at night, as the luxury of variety in dress is not known to, or appreciated by, the Aborigines.
No covering is worn upon the head, although they are continually exposed to the rays of an almost tropical sun. In extreme seasons of heat, and 'when they are travelling, they sometimes gather a few green bunches or wet weeds and place upon their heads; but this does not frequently occur.
The character of the Australian natives is frank, open, and confiding. In a short intercourse they are easily made friends, and when such terms are once established, they associate with strangers with a freedom and fearlessness, that would give little countenance to the impression so generally entertained of their treachery. On many occasions where I have met these wanderers in the wild, far removed from the abodes of civilization, and when I have been accompanied only by a single native boy, I have been received by them in the kindest and most friendly manner, had presents made to me of fish, kangaroo, or fruit, had them accompany me for miles to point out where water was to be procured, and been assisted by them in getting at it, if from the nature of the soil and my own inexperience. I had any difficulty in doing so myself.
I have ever found them of a lively, cheerful disposition [Note 59 at end of para.], patiently putting up with inconveniences and privations, and never losing that natural good temper which so strongly characterizes them. On the occasion of my second visit from Moorunde, to the Rufus natives in 1841, when I had so far overcome the ill-feelings and dread, engendered by the transactions in that quarter, in 1840, as to induce a large body of them to accompany me back to the station, they had to walk a distance of 150 miles, making daily the same stages that the horses did, and unprovided with any food but what they could procure along the road as they passed, and this from the rapidity with which they had to travel, and the distance they had to go in a day, was necessarily limited in quantity, and very far from sufficient to appease even the cravings of hunger, yet tired, foot-sore, and hungry as they were, and in company with strangers, whose countrymen had slain them in scores, but a few months before, they were always merry at their camps at nights, and kept singing, laughing, and joking, to a late hour.
[Note 59: Such appears usually to be the characteristic of Nature's children, than whom no race appears more thoroughly to enjoy life.--Vide character of the American Indians, by Catlin, vol. 1. p. 84.]
On falling in with them in larger numbers, when I have been travelling in the interior with my party, I have still found the same disposition to meet me on terms of amity and kindness. Nor can a more interesting sight well be imagined, than that of a hundred or two hundred natives advancing in line to meet you, unarmed, shouting and waving green boughs in both hands, men, women, and children, the old and the young, all joining in expressing their good feelings and pacific intentions. On such occasions I have been often astonished at the facility with which large bodies, have by a little kindness and forbearance been managed, and kept from being troublesome or annoying, by a party of only six or seven Europeans. I have occasionally had upwards of 150 natives sitting in a long line, where I placed them, and as orderly and obedient almost as a file of soldiers.
At other times, when riding with only a native boy over the plains of the interior, I have seen the blue smoke of the native fires, curling up through the distant line of trees, which marked some yet unvisited watercourse, and upon making towards it, have come suddenly upon a party encamped in the hollow, beneath the banks upon which I stood. Here I have remained, observing them for a few moments, unseen and unthought of. A single call would arouse their attention, and as they looked up, would draw from them a wild exclamation of dismay, accompanied by a look of indescribable horror and affright, at beholding the strange, and to them incomprehensible beings who stood before them. Weapons would hastily be seized, baggage gathered up, and the party so lately buried in repose and security, would at once be ready either to fight or to evacuate their camps, as circumstances might seem to render most expedient. A few friendly gestures and a peaceable demeanour would however soon dissipate their terror, and in a few moments their weapons would be thrown aside, and both invaders and invaded be upon intimate and confiding terms.
I have always found the natives ready to barter their nets, weapons, or other implements, for European articles, and sometimes they will give them unsolicited, and without any equivalent; amongst themselves they constantly do this.
In their intercourse with each other, natives of different tribes are exceedingly punctilious and polite, the most endearing epithets are passed between those who never met before; almost every thing that is said is prefaced by the appellation of father, son, brother, mother, sister, or some other similar term, corresponding to that degree of relationship which would have been most in accordance with their relative ages and circumstances. In many instances, too, these titles are even accompanied by the still more insinuating addition of "dear," to say nothing of the hugs and embraces which they mutually give and receive.
The natives are very fond of the children they rear, and often play with, and fondle them; but husbands rarely shew much affection for their wives. After a long absence, I have seen natives, upon their return, go to their camp, exhibiting the most stoical indifference, never take the least notice of their wives, but sit down, and act, and look, as if they had never been out of the encampment; in fact, if any thing, they are more taciturn and reserved than usual, and some little time elapses before they enter into conversation with freedom, or in their ordinary manner.
[Note 60: For the existence of similar customs amongst the American Indians, vide Catlin, vol. i. p. 56.]
Upon meeting children after a long absence, I have seen parents "fall upon their necks, and weep" bitterly. It is a mistaken idea, as well as an unjust one, that supposes the natives to be without sensibility of feeling. It may often be repressed from pride or policy, but it will sometimes break forth uncontrolled, and reveal, that the best and genuine feelings of the heart are participated in by savage in common with civilized man. The following is an instance in point:--A fine intelligent young boy, was, by his father's consent, living with me at the Murray for many weeks; but upon the old man's going into Adelaide, he took his son away to accompany him. Whilst there, the boy died, and for nearly a year I never saw any thing more of the father, although he occasionally had been within a few miles of my neighbourhood. One day, however, I was out shooting about three miles from home, and accidentally fell in with him. Upon seeing me he immediately burst into tears, and was unable to speak. It was the first time he had met me since his son's death, and my presence forcibly reminded him of his loss. The same circumstance occurred when he accompanied me to the house, where every thing he saw recalled the memory of his child.
Innate propriety of behaviour is also frequently exhibited by the Aborigines in their natural state, in the modest unassuming manner in which they take their positions to observe what is going on, and in a total absence of any thing that is rude or offensive. It is true that the reverse of this is also often to be met with; but I think it will usually be found that it is among natives who have before been in contact with Europeans, or where familiarities have been used with them first, or an injudicious system of treatment has been adopted towards them.
DELICACY of feeling is not often laid to the charge of the Aborigines, and yet I was witness to a singular instance of it at King George's Sound. I was looking one evening at the natives dancing, and who were, as they always are on these occasions, in a state of complete nudity. In the midst of the performance, one of the natives standing by a spectator, mentioned that a white woman was passing up the road; and although this was some little distance away, and the night was tolerably dark, they all with one accord crossed over to the bushes where their cloaks were, put them on, and resumed their amusement.
It has been said, and is generally believed, that the natives are not courageous. There could not be a greater mistake, at least as far as they are themselves concerned, nor do I hold it to be any proof that they are cowards, because they dread or give way before Europeans and their fire-arms. So unequal a match is no criterion of bravery, and yet even thus, among natives, who were labouring under the feelings, naturally produced by seeing a race they were unacquainted with, and weapons that dealt death as if by magic, I have seen many instances of an open manly intrepidity of manner and bearing, and a proud unquailing glance of eye, which instinctively stamped upon my mind the conviction that the individuals before me were very brave men.
In travelling about from one place to another, I have always made it a point, if possible, to be accompanied by one or more natives, and I have often found great advantage from it. Attached to an exploring party they are frequently invaluable, as their perceptive powers are very great, and enable them both to see and hear anything at a much greater distance than a European. In tracking stray animals, and keeping on indistinct paths, they display a degree of perseverance and skill that is really wonderful. They are useful also in cutting bark canoes to cross a river, should such impede the progress of the party, and in diving for anything that may be lost in the water, etc. etc. The Aborigines generally, and almost always those living near large bodies of water, are admirable swimmers and divers, and are almost as much at home in the water as on dry land. I have known them even saw a small log or root at the bottom of a deep river. In a locality, however, which is badly watered, it sometimes happens that they cannot swim. At Meerkap, in Western Australia, while crossing with some friends, from the Sound to Swan River, we met with some who were in this predicament, and who seemed a good deal astonished at our venturing into the small ponds at that place. I have been told that the natives at the Sound could not swim before that settlement was occupied by Europeans--this seems hardly probable, however, upon the sea-coast; at all events, be this as it may, they all swim now.
In habit they are truly nomadic, seldom remaining many weeks in one locality, and frequently not many days. The number travelling together depends, in a great measure, upon the period of the year, and the description of food that may be in season. If there is any particular variety more abundant than another, or procurable only in certain localities, the whole tribe generally congregate to partake of it. Should this not be the case, then they are probably scattered over their district in detached groups, or separate families.
At certain seasons of the year, usually in the spring or summer, when food is most abundant, several tribes meet together in each other's territory for the purpose of festivity or war, or to barter and exchange such food, clothing, implements, weapons, or other commodities as they respectively possess; or to assist in the initiatory ceremonies by which young persons enter into the different grades of distinction amongst them. The manner and formalities of meeting depend upon the cause for which they assemble. If the tribes have been long apart, many deaths may have occurred in the interim; and as the natives do not often admit that the young or the strong can die from natural causes, they ascribe the event to the agency of sorcery, employed by individuals of neighbouring tribes. This must of course be expiated in some way when they meet, but the satisfaction required is regulated by the desire of the injured tribe to preserve amicable relations with the other, or the reverse.
The following is an account of a meeting which I witnessed, between the natives of Moorunde (comprising portions of several of the neighbouring tribes) and the Nar-wij-jerook, or Lake Bonney tribe, accompanied also by many of their friends. This meeting had been pre-arranged, as meetings of large bodies of natives never take place accidentally, for even when a distant tribe approaches the territory of another unexpectedly, messengers are always sent on in advance, to give the necessary warning. The object of the meeting in question was to perform the initiatory ceremonies upon a number of young men belonging to both of the tribes. In the Murray district, when one tribe desires another to come from a distance to perform these ceremonies, young men are sent off with messages of invitation, carrying with them as their credentials, long narrow news, made of string manufactured from the rush. These nets are left with the tribe they are sent to, and brought back again when the invitation is responded to.
Notice having been given on the previous evening to the Moorunde natives of the approach of the Nar-wij-jerook tribe, they assembled at an early hour after sunrise, in as clear and open a place as they could find. Here they sat down in a long row to await the coming of their friends. The men were painted, and carried their weapons, as if for war. The women and children were in detached groups, a little behind them, or on one side, whilst the young men, on whom the ceremonies were to be performed, sat shivering with cold and apprehension in a row to the rear of the men, perfectly naked, smeared over from head to foot with grease and red-ochre, and without weapons. The Nar-wij-jerook tribe was now seen approaching. The men were in a body, armed and painted, and the women and children accompanying them a little on one side. They occasionally halted, and entered into consultation, and then, slackening their pace, gradually advanced until within a hundred yards of the Moorunde tribe. Here the men came to a full stop, whilst several of the women singled out from the rest, and marched into the space between the two parties, having their heads coated over with lime, and raising a loud and melancholy wail, until they came to a spot about equi-distant from both, when they threw down their cloaks with violence, and the bags which they carried on their backs, and which contained all their worldly effects. The bags were then opened, and pieces of glass and shells taken out, with which they lacerated their thighs, backs, and breasts, in a most frightful manner, whilst the blood kept pouring out of the wounds in streams; and in this plight, continuing their wild and piercing lamentations, they moved up towards the Moorunde tribe, who sat silently and immoveably in the place at first occupied. One of the women then went up to a strange native, who was on a visit to the Moorunde tribe and who stood neutral in the affair of the meeting, and by violent language and frantic gesticulations endeavoured to incite him to revenge the death of some relation or friend. But he could not be induced to lift his spear against the people amongst whom he was sojourning. After some time had been spent in mourning, the women took up their bundles again, and retiring, placed themselves in the rear of their own party. An elderly man then advanced, and after a short colloquy with the seated tribe, went back, and beckoned his own people to come forward, which they did slowly and in good order, exhibiting in front three uplifted spears, to which were attached the little nets left with them by the envoys of the opposite tribe, and which were the emblems of the duty they had come to perform, after the ordinary expiations had been accomplished.
In advancing, the Nar-wij-jerooks again commenced the death wail, and one of the men, who had probably sustained the greatest loss since the tribes had last met, occasionally in alternations of anger and sorrow addressed his own people. When near the Moorunde tribe a few words were addressed to them, and they at once rose simultaneously, with a suppressed shout. The opposite party then raised their spears, and closing upon the line of the other tribe, speared about fifteen or sixteen of them in the left arm, a little below the shoulder. This is the generally understood order of revenge; for the persons who were to receive the wounds, as soon as they saw the weapons of their assailants poised, at once put out the left foot, to steady themselves, and presented the left shoulder for the blow, frequently uttering the word "Leipa" (spear), as the others appeared to hesitate.
Whilst this was going on, the influential men of each tribe were violently talking to each other, and apparently accusing one another of being accessory to the death of some of their people. Disclaimers passed on each side, and the blame was imputed to other and more distant tribes. The manes of the dead having been appeased, the honour of each party was left unsullied, and the Nar-wij-jerooks retired about a hundred yards, and sat down, ready to enter upon the ceremonies of the day, which will be described in another place. [Note 61: Chapter V.]
If the meeting of the tribes be for the purpose of war, a favourable situation is selected by one of the parties, and notice is sent to the other, who then proceed to the place of meeting, where both draw out their forces in opposing parallel lines. Day-break, or nearly about sunset in the evening, are the times preferred for these engagements, as the softened light at those hours does not so much affect the eyesight, and the spears are more easily seen and avoided. Both parties are fully armed with spears, shields, and other weapons, and the fight sometimes lasts for three or four hours, during which scarcely a word is spoken, and but little noise of any kind is heard, excepting a shrill cry now and then, when some one is wounded or has a narrow escape. Many are injured generally on both sides, and some severely so; but it rarely happens that more than one or two are killed, though hundreds may have been engaged.
The fights are sometimes witnessed by men who are not concerned in them, by the women and the children. The presence of the females may be supposed probably to inspire the belligerents with courage and incite them to deeds of daring.
The most dangerous and fatal affrays in which the natives engage are those which occur suddenly amongst tribes who have been encamped near one another on amicable terms, and between whom some cause of difference has arisen, probably in relation to their females, or some recent death, which it is imagined the sorcerers have been instrumental in producing. In the former case a kind of melee sometimes takes place at night, when fire-brands are thrown about, spears launched, and bwirris [Note 62 at end of para.] bran-dished in indescribable confusion. In the latter case the affray usually occurs immediately after the body is buried, and is more of a hand-to-hand fight, in which bwirris are used rather than spears, and in which tremendous blows are struck and frightful wounds inflicted.
[Note 62: A short, heavy, wooden stick, with a knob at one end.]
In wars males are always obliged to join their relatives by blood and their own tribe. Women frequently excite the men to engage in these affrays to revenge injuries or deaths, and sometimes they assist themselves by carrying spears or other weapons for their husbands. I am not aware that women or children are ever butchered after a battle is over, and I believe such is never the case. Single camps are sometimes treacherously surprised when the parties are asleep, and the males barbarously killed in cold blood. This generally takes place just before the morning dawns, when the native is most drowsy, and least likely to give his attention to any thing he might hear. In these cases the attack is generally made under the belief that the individual is a desperate sorcerer, and has worked innumerable mischiefs to their tribe. In their attacks upon European parties I believe the natives generally advance in a line or crescent, beating their weapons together, throwing dust in the air, spitting, biting their beards, or using some other similar act of defiance and hostility. I have never witnessed any such collision myself, but am told that the attack is always accompanied by that peculiar savage sound produced by the suppressed guttural shout of many voices in unison, which they use in conflicts amongst themselves, and which is continued to the moment of collision, and renewed in triumph whenever a weapon strikes an opponent.
When hostilely disposed from either fear or from having been previously ill-treated, I have seen the natives, without actually proceeding to extremities, resort to all the symptoms of defiance I have mentioned, or at other times, run about with fire-brands in their hands, lighting the bushes and the grass, either as a charm, or in the hope of burning out the intruders. When much alarmed and rather closely pressed, they have run up the trees like monkeys, and concealed themselves among the boughs, evidently thinking they were secure from pursuit there.
If tribes meet simply for the purpose of festivity, and have no deaths to avenge on either side, although they appear in warlike attitude, painted and bearing spear and shield, yet when they approach each other, they all become seated upon the ground. After which, the strangers, should there be any, undergo a formal introduction, and have their country and lineage described by the older men. At these meetings all occurrences of interest are narrated, information is given as to the localities in which food is most abundant, and invitations are issued by the proprietors of these districts, to their relations and friends to accompany them thither.
The position of one tribe towards another, whether on friendly terms or otherwise, is talked about, and consultations are held on the existing state of affairs, whether hostilities shall be continued or withdrawn, and future plans of operation are marked out.
Whilst the men are occupied in discussing these matters, the females engage in a narration of family occurrences, such as births of children, marriages, deaths, etc., not omitting a sprinkling of gossip and scandal, from which, even these ebon sisters of a fairer race, are not altogether exempt.
In the evening, the huts of the different tribes are built as near to each other as practicable, each tribe locating itself in the direction from whence it came. The size and character of the huts, with the number of their occupants, vary according to the state of the weather, and the local circumstances of their position. In fine weather, one hut will contain from two to five families, in wet weather more, each family however having a separate fire.
The amusements of the natives are various, but they generally have a reference to their future occupations or pursuits. Boys who are very young, have small reed spears made for them by their parents, the ends of which are padded with grass, to prevent them from hurting each other. They then stand at a little distance, and engage in a mimic fight; and by this means acquire early that skill in the use of this weapon, for which, in after life, they are so much celebrated. At other times round pieces of bark are rolled along the ground, to represent an animal in the act of running, at which the spears are thrown for the sake of practice.
Another favourite amusement among the children, is to practise the dances and songs of the adults, and a boy is very proud if he attains sufficient skill in these, to be allowed to take part in the exhibitions that are made before other tribes.
String puzzles are another species of amusement with them. In these a European would be surprised to see the ingenuity they display, and the varied and singular figures which they produce. Our juvenile attempts in this way, are very meagre and uninteresting compared to them. [Note 63: An amusement of the New Zealand children.--Dieffenbach, vol. 2. p. 32.]
Other gratifications enjoyed by children, consist in learning the occupations and pursuits of after life, as to make twine, and weapons; to ascend trees; to procure food; to guide the canoe, and many other things, which enter into the pursuits of a savage.
The elder boys engage more extensively in similar occupations, as they are more particularly interested in them, and by their exertions have to provide chiefly for their own support. Mock combats frequently take place amongst them, in which they are encouraged by the adults, that they may acquire the dexterities of warfare, in which they are soon to be more seriously engaged. [Note 64: For an account of a similar practise among the American Indians, vide Catlin, vol. 1. p. 131.]
An amusement of the adults, is a large bunch of emu feathers tied together, (fig. 1. Pl. 1.) which is held out and shaken as if in defiance, by some individual, whilst the others advance to try to take it out of his hands. This occasions an amusing struggle before the prize is gained, in which it is not uncommon to see from ten to twenty strong and lusty men rolling in a heap together. This is a sort of athletic exercise amongst them, for the purpose of testing each other's strength. On such an occasion they are all unarmed and naked.
At nights, dances or plays are performed by the different tribes in turn, the figures and scenes of which are extensively varied, but all are accompanied by songs, and a rude kind of music produced by beating two sticks together, or by the action of the hand upon a cloak of skins rolled tightly together, so as to imitate the sound of a drum. In some of the dances only are the women allowed to take a part; but they have dances of their own, in which the men do not join. At all times they are the chief musicians, vocal and instrumental. Sometimes, however, they have an old man to lead the band and pitch the tunes; and at others they are assisted by the old and young men indiscriminately.
The natives have not any war-dance, properly so called, though sometimes they are decorated in all the pomp and circumstance of war. Being excellent mimies, they imitate in many of their dances the habits and movements of animals. They also represent the mode of hunting, fighting, love-making, etc. New figures and new songs are constantly introduced, and are as much applauded and encored, as more refined productions of a similar kind in civilized communities; being sometimes passed from tribe to tribe for a considerable distance. I have often seen dances performed to songs with which I was acquainted, and which I knew to belong to distant parts of the country where a different dialect was spoken, and which consequently could not be understood where I heard them. Many of the natives cannot even give an interpretation of the songs of their own districts [Note 65 at end of para.], and most of the explanations they do give are, I am inclined to think, generally very imperfect, as the measures or quantities of the syllables appear to be more attended to than the sense.
[Note 65: "Not one in ten of the young men who are dancing and singing it, know the meaning of the song they are chaunting over."--Catlin, vol. 1. p. 126. Also the case in New Zealand, with respect to some of the songs.--Vide Dieffenbach, vol. 2. p. 57.]
Of these amusements the natives are passionately fond; and when once they have so far overcome their naturally indolent disposition as to be induced to engage in them there is no knowing when they will give over. Dances are sometimes held during the day, but these are of rare occurrence, and seem to be in some way connected with their ceremonial observances or superstitions, since rude figures, and lofty branches of trees, decorated with tufts of feathers, emu plumes, swan's down and red ochre, occupy a prominent part in the exhibition, although never met with in the dances by night.
The dances vary a great deal among the different tribes, both as to figures and music; the painting or decoration of their persons, their use of weapons, and the participation of the females in them. Throughout the entire continent, as far as it is known. there are many points of resemblance in the dances of all the Aborigines, such as the practice of painting the body with white and red ochre, carrying boughs in their hands, or tying them round their limbs; adorning the head with feathers or down, bearing bunches of feathers, tied in tufts in their hands, the women singing and beating time upon folded skins, the men beating time upon sticks or some of their smaller weapons, an old man acting as leader of the band, and giving the time and tune to the others; the dances representing the actions of animals, the circumstances of the chase, of war, or of love; and the singular and extraordinary quivering motion of the thighs when the legs are distended, a peculiarity probably confined to the natives of the continent of Australia.
The most interesting dances are those which take place at the meeting of different tribes. Each tribe performs in turn, and as there is much rivalry, there is a corresponding stimulus to exertion. The dances usually commence an hour or two after dark, and are frequently kept up the greater part of the night, the performers becoming so much excited that, notwithstanding the violent exercise required to sustain all their evolutions, they are unwilling to leave off. It is sometimes difficult to induce them to commence a dance; but if they once begin, and enter into the spirit of it, it is still more difficult to induce them to break up.
The females of the tribe exhibiting, generally sit down in front of the performers, either irregularly, in a line, or a semicircle, folding up their skin cloaks into a hard ball, and then beating them upon their laps with the palm of their hand, and accompanying the noise thus produced with their voices. It is surprising to see the perfect time that is kept in this way, and the admirable manner in which the motions of the dancers accord with the music. There is no confusion, irregularity, or mistake. Each person is conversant with his part; and all exhibit a degree of elasticity and gracefulness in their movements which, in some of the dances, is very striking and beautiful.
In many of the figures, weapons are carried, such as the waddy, the shield, the spear, etc. and in these it is amazing to behold the facility and skill with which they form in close array, spread into open rank, change places, and thread through the mazes of the dance, without ever deranging their plans, or coming in contact with each other.
The tribes who are not engaged in dancing, are seated in a large semicircle as spectators, occasionally giving a rapturous exclamation of delight, as any part of the performance is well gone through or any remarkable feat of activity exhibited. Where natives have not much acquaintance with Europeans, so as to give up, in some measure, their original habits, if there is any degree of jealousy between the respective tribes, they are sometimes partitioned off from each other by boughs of trees, whilst they look at the dance. On one occasion I saw five tribes met together, and the evening was of course spent in dancing. Each tribe danced in turn, about forty being engaged at once, besides sixteen females, eight of whom were at each corner of the male performers. The men were naked, painted in various devices with red and white, and had their heads adorned with feathers. The women wore their opossum cloaks, and had bands of white down round their foreheads, with the long feathers of the cockatoo sticking up in front like horns. In the dance the men and women did not intermingle; but the two sets of women who were dancing at the corners of the line, occasionally changed places with each other, passing in this transit, at the back of the men. All sung, and the men beat time upon their smaller weapons whilst dancing, the whole making up a wild and piercing noise, most deafening and ungrateful to the ears.
The natives of the Rufus and Lake Victoria (Tar-ru) have a great variety of dances and figures. One of these, which I witnessed, representing the character, habits, and chase of the kangaroo was admirably performed, and would have drawn down thunders of applause at any theatre in Europe. One part of this figure, where the whole of the dancers successively drop down from a standing to a crouching posture, and then hop off in this position with outstretched arms and legs, was excellently executed. The contrast of their sable skins with the broad white stripes painted down their legs; their peculiar attitudes, and the order and regularity with which these were kept, as they moved in a large semicircle, in the softening light of the fire, produced a striking effect; and in connection with the wild and inspiriting song, which gave an impulse to their gesticulation, led me almost to believe that the scene was unearthly.
In some of the dances the music varies rapidly from slow to quick, and the movements alter accordingly. In some they are altogether measured and monotonous, in others very lively and quick, keeping the performers almost constantly at a double quick march, moving in advance and retreat, crossing past or threading through the ranks, and using a kind of motion with the feet in unison with the music, that bears a strong resemblance to the European mode of dancing. At particular points the figures terminate by some simultaneous motion of the whole performers, accompanied by a deep, gutteral "Waugh," [Note 66 at end of para.] uttered by all together; at others by the actors closing in a dense circle, and raising and pointing their weapons upwards with the same exclamation.
[Note 66: This very peculiar sound appears to be common among the American Indians, and to be used in a similar manner.--Vide Catlin, vol. 2. p.136.]
The "Paritke," or natives inhabiting the scrub north-west of Moorunde, have quite a different form of dancing from the river natives. They are painted or decorated with feathers in a similar way; but each dancer ties bunches of green boughs round the leg, above the knees, whilst the mode of dancing consists in stamping with the foot and uttering at each motion a deep ventral intonation, the boughs round the knees making a loud rustling noise in keeping with the time of the music. One person, who directs the others in the movements of this dance, holds in his hands an instrument in the form of a diamond, made of two slight sticks, from two and a half to three feet long, crossed and tied in the middle, round this a string, made of the hair of the opposum, is pressed from corner to corner, and continued successively towards the centre until there is only room left for the hand to hold the instrument. At each corner is appended a bunch of cockatoo feathers. With this the chief performer keeps a little in advance of the dancers, and whisking it up and down to the time of the music, regulates their movements.
In another dance, in which women are the chief performers, their bodies are painted with white streaks, and their hair adorned with cockatoo feathers. They carry large sticks in their hands, and place themselves in a row in front, whilst the men with their spears stand in a line behind them. They then all commence their movements, but without intermingling, the males and females dancing by themselves. There is little variety or life in this dance, yet it seems to be a favourite one with the natives.
The women have occasionally another mode of dancing, by joining the hands together over the head, closing the feet, and bringing the knees into contact. The legs are then thrown outwards from the knee, whilst the feet and hands are kept in their original position, and being drawn quickly in again a sharp sound is produced by the collision. This is either practised alone by young girls, or by several together for their own amusement. It is adopted also when a single woman is placed in front of a row of male dancers to excite their passions; for many of the native dances are of a grossly licentious character. In another figure they keep the feet close together, without lifting them from the ground, and by a peculiar motion of the limbs advance onwards, describing a short semicircle. This amusement is almost exclusively confined to young females among themselves.
It has already been remarked, that the natives, on particular occasions, have dances which they perform in the day-time, which are different from others, and seem to have some connection with their ceremonial observances or superstitions. I have only witnessed one of these. It took place at Moorunde, in March 1844, on the occasion of a large number of distant natives coming to visit the place; and the visitors were the performers. The Moorunde natives were seated upon the brow of a sand-bank; the strangers, consisting of two tribes, down in a hollow a little way off, among a few bushes. When ready, they advanced in a line towards the others, dancing and singing, being painted and decorated as usual, some having tufts of feathers placed upon their heads like cockades and others carrying them in their hands tied to short sticks. Nearly all the males carried bunches of green boughs, which they waved and shook to the time of the song. The women were also painted, and danced in a line with the men, those of each tribe stationing themselves at opposite ends of the line. Dancing for a while, they retired again towards the hollow, and after a short interval advanced as before, but with a person in the centre carrying a curious, rude-looking figure, raised up in the air. This singular object consisted of a large bundle of grass and reeds bound together, enveloped in a kangaroo skin, with the flesh side outwards, and painted all over in small white circles. From the top of this projected a thin stick, with a large tuft of feathers at the end to represent the head, and sticks were stuck out laterally from the sides for the arms, terminating in tufts of feathers stained red to represent the hands. From the front, a small stick about six inches long was projected, ending with a thick knob, formed of grass, around which a piece of old cloth was tied. This was painted white and represented the navel. The figure was about eight feet long, and was evidently intended to symbolise a man. It was kept in its elevated position by the person who carried it, and who advanced and retired with the movements of the dancers. The position of the latter was alternately erect and crouching, whilst they sang and beat time with the green boughs. Sometimes they stretched out their right arms simultaneously, and at other times their left, apparently for the purpose of marking the time at particular parts of the song. After dancing for a while in this way, they again retired to the hollow, and for a few moments there was another pause; after which they again advanced as before, but without the image. In the place of this two standards were exhibited, made of poles, about twelve feet long, and borne by two persons. These were perfectly straight, and for the first eight feet free from boughs; above this nine branches were left upon each pole, having at their ends each a bunch of feathers of the hawk or owl. On the top of one of the standards was a bunch of emu feathers. The branches were stripped of all their smaller twigs and leaves, and of their bark. They were painted white, and wound round with the white down of the black swan, twisted into a rope. This also extended for a considerable distance down the pole, below the undermost branch.
Having again retired towards the hollow, they remained there for a few minutes, and then advanced for the third time. On this occasion, however, instead of the image or standards, they all carried their spears. After dancing with these for some time, they went forward towards the Moorunde natives, who sprang upon their feet, and seizing their weapons, speared two or three of the strangers in the shoulder, and all was over. I was anxious to have got hold of the rude figure to have a drawing made of it, but it had been instantly destroyed. The standards I procured.
This dance took place between nine and ten in the morning, and was quite unlike any thing I had seen before. A stranger might have supposed it to be a religious ceremony, and the image the object of worship. Such, however, I am convinced was not the case, although I believe it to have had some connection with their superstitions, and that it was regarded in the light of a charm.
Before the country was occupied by Europeans, the natives say that this dance was frequently celebrated, but that latterly it has not been much in use. No other instance of it ever came under my own observation in any part of New Holland.
The songs of the natives are of a very rude and unmeaning character, rarely consisting of more than one or two ideas, which are continually repeated over and over again. They are chiefly made on the spur of the moment, and refer to something that has struck the attention at the time. The measure of the song varies according to circumstances. It is gay and lively, for the dance; slow and solemn for the enchanter; and wild and pathetic for the mourner. The music is sometimes not unharmonious; and when heard in the stillness of the night and mellowed by distance, is often soothing and pleasing. I have frequently laid awake, after retiring to rest, to listen to it. Europeans, their property, presence, and habits, are frequently the subject of these songs; and as the natives possess great powers of mimicry, and are acute in the observation of anything that appears to them absurd or ludicrous, the white man often becomes the object of their jests or quizzing. I have heard songs of this kind sung at the dances in a kind of comic medley, where different speakers take up parts during the breaks in the song, and where a sentence or two of English is aptly introduced, or a quotation made from some native dialect, other than that of the performers. It is usually conducted in the form of question and answer, and the respective speakers use the language of the persons they are supposed to represent. The chorus is, however, still the same repetition of one or two words.
The following specimens, taken from a vocabulary published by Messrs. Teichelmann, and Schurmann, German Missionaries to the Aborigines, will give an idea of the nature of the songs of the Adelaide tribe.
KADLITPIKO PALTI. Pindi mai birkibirki parrato, parrato. (DE CAPO BIS.)
CAPTAIN JACK'S SONG. The European food, the pease, I wished to eat, I wished to eat.
MULLAWIRRABURKARNA PALTI. Natta ngai padlo ngaityarniappi; watteyernaurlo tappandi ngaityo parni tatti. (DA CAPO.)
KING JOHN'S SONG. Now it (viz. the road or track) has tired me; throughout Yerna there is here unto me a continuous road.
WILTONGARROLO kundando Strike (him, viz. the dog) with the tuft of eagle feathers.
Kadlottikurrelo paltando Strike (him) with the girdle
Mangakurrelo paltando Strike (him) with the string round the head
Worrikarrolo paltando Strike (him) with the blood of circumcision
Turtikarrolo paltando Strike (him) with the blood of the arm. etc. etc.
Kartipaltapaltarlo padlara kundando
Wodliparrele kadlondo
Kanyamirarlo kadlondo
Karkopurrelo kadlondo
"This curse or imprecation is used in hunting a wild dog, which, by the mysterious effects of those words, is induced to lie down securely to sleep, when the natives steal upon and easily kill him. The first word in each line denotes things sacred or secret, which the females and children are never allowed to see.
* * *
KAWEMUKKA minnurappindo Durtikarro minnurappindo Tarralye minnurappindo Wimmari minnurappindi Kirki minurappindo Wattetarpirri minnurappindo Worrikarro minurappindo
"These sentences are used in hunting opossums, to prevent their escape, when the natives set fire to hollow trees in which the opossums are living.
* * *
KARRO karro wimmari Karra yernka makkitia Karro karro kauwemukka Makkitia mulyeria Karro karro makkitia
"These words are rapidly repeated to the NGULTAS, while undergoing the painful operation of tattooing; they are believed to be so powerful as to soothe the pain, and prevent fatal consequences of that barbarous operation."
Another specimen may be given from the Vocabulary published by Mr. Meyer, another of the German Missionaries at Encounter Bay.
"Miny-el-ity yarluke an-ambe what is it road me for Aly-..el-..arr' yerk-in yangaiak-ar! here are they standing up hill . . . . . . s
What a fine road is this for me winding between the hills!
"The above words compose one of the native songs. It refers to the road between Encounter Bay and Willunga. All their songs appear to be of the same description, consisting of a few words which are continually repeated. This specimen, it will be observed, consists of two regular verses:
-u|--|u-|u-u -u|--|u-|u-u
"This may, however, be accidental."
I have not thought it worth while to give any specimens of the songs I have collected myself, because I could not be quite certain that I should give the original words with strict accuracy, neither could I be satisfied about the translations.
The assemblage of several tribes at one place for any of the objects I have described, rarely continues uninterrupted for any great length of time, for even where it has taken place for the most pacific purposes, it seldom terminates as it began; and the greater the number of natives present, the less likelihood is there that they will remain very long in a state of quiescence.
If not soon compelled to separate by the scarcity of food, or a desire to follow some favourite pursuit, for which the season of the year is favourable, they are generally driven to it by discord and disagreements amongst themselves, which their habits and superstitions are calculated to foment.