THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 UN/VERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO 
 
 LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA
 
 WILLIAM BUCKLEY, 
 
 THK 
 
 WILD WHITE MAN, 
 
 HIS PORT PHILLIP BLACK FRIENDS. 
 
 BY JAMES BONWICK ; 
 
 AUTHOR OF "GEOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND; 
 "DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF PORT PHILLIP," Sic., fcc. 
 
 MELBOURNE : 
 GEO. NICHOLS, COLLINS STREET, WEST.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE object of the present work is rather to present the Blacks 
 as they were than as they are. For this purpose, documents of an 
 ancient colonial date have been consulted, and the experience of the 
 first settlers has been related. 
 
 The Author has to express his deep sense of obligation to the 
 kindness and public spirit of Mr. John Helder Wedge of Tasmania, 
 Mr. McMillan of Gipps Land, Dr. Thomson of Geelong, and other 
 esteemed fellow colonists, for their valuable information. 
 
 The floating tales of the early days, unless now collected, will 
 soon be forgotten, or lapse into fabled traditions. The Author has 
 been the fortunate means of preserving some interesting reminis- 
 cences of the primitive days of Port Phillip, and the savage state 
 of the Aborigines. Having been equally successful in obtaining 
 reliable accounts of the poor Tasmanians, he hopes to lay their sad 
 story before the Australian Public. 
 
 Jt i.s fitting that our youth be acquainted with the annals of their 
 own homes, and that their sympathies be excited for the race that 
 dwelt in the land before them. 
 
 JAMES BON WICK. 
 October 13th, 1856.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Bi ( KI.F.Y, THE WILD WHITE MAN 1 
 
 THE WILD WHITE MAN'S PORT PUILLIP BLACK FRIENDS j 
 
 Lieutenant Tuckey's Narrative 23 
 
 The French and the Blacks in 1 803 24 
 
 Start and the Murray Blacks in 1830 25 
 
 Major Mitchell and the Blacks in 1836 30 
 
 The Association and the Blacks 31 
 
 Mr. Batman and the Blacks 34 
 
 Mr. Wedge and the Blacks in 1835 35 
 
 The First Overlander and the Blacks 41 
 
 Count Strzlecki and the Gipps Land Blacks 42 
 
 Mr. McMillan and the Wild Gipps Land Natives 44 
 
 The Wild Blacks of Lake Hindmarsh 46 
 
 Physical Appearance and character of the Port Phillip Blacks 47 
 
 Clothing, Ornaments, and Tenements 49 
 
 Food and Cooking... 50 
 
 Hunting 52 
 
 Songs and Dances 53 
 
 Women and Children 62 
 
 Marriages 64 
 
 I nfanticidc and Cannibalism 68 
 
 Weapons 71 
 
 Religion and Missions 72 
 
 Superstitions 76 
 
 Diseases 81 
 
 Death and Burial 83 
 
 Language 85 
 
 Origin of the Natives 87 
 
 Conflicts of Whites and Blacks 88 
 
 Native Rights and British Rule 91 
 
 Protectors and Native Police 92 
 
 Sketches of Native Character 93 
 
 Civilization and Decline 95
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 NOT long ago we visited a small party of aborigines camping 
 near our house. There were four or five ; old Jemmy, his lubra 
 Mary, an adopted child, and their friend Simon. They had just 
 returned from Melbourne, laden with packets of sugar, tea, loaves 
 of bread, meat, sardines, &c. The men were clad in European 
 fashion, though without boots and hats. The woman had some 
 under garments, but the dirty blanket enveloped all. The little 
 girl had only the piece of a blanket. Simon was preparing his 
 supper at the fire. Jemmy was drunk, and quarrelling with his 
 wife. The child was crying on the damp ground. The poor young 
 half-caste was motherless ; her reckless father might, for ought 
 we know, be still tending sheep on the plains, or standing behind 
 a counter in Melbourne. 
 
 The dispute which had lulled at our entrance, was soon 
 resumed in angry earnestness. We found out it was a family 
 quarrel. Oaths and opprobrious epithets, wanting in his own 
 language, the old man borrowed from the classic tongue of the 
 English. Taking us privately aside, he recounted to us a 
 narrative of wrongs, such as few husbands are called upon to 
 endure. The lady utterly denied everything, and charged her 
 spouse with conjugal improprieties, of which he frankly and 
 voluntarily acknowleged the truth, alleging such to be no excuse for 
 her faults. But as she evidently had the best of the argument, 
 a fire stick was applied to her head to induce sounder convictions. 
 This produced retaliations of so active a nature that we were com- 
 pelled to interfere, and forcibly hold the avenging arm, while the 
 screaming woman tied into the darkness.
 
 VI. 
 
 Such was the exhibition of native domestic life, and such the 
 march of improvement from a contact with the civilized white man ! 
 In the meantime, Simon sat silently and stoically by the fire. 
 He was one who had seen Batman at his first celebrated con- 
 ference with the aborigines. His father Jagajaga was an 
 influential and faithful friend to the then humble minded, weak, 
 and smiling whites. As the last of his family, he now wandered a 
 stranger in the land of his forefathers. He was ill, melancholy 
 and without hope. He told us that there was not a black child 
 in his tribe; adding in a sad tone, " All black fellow go away." 
 
 We desired to gather a few records of their history, especially 
 as they were when the friends of the Wild White Man, and tell 
 the tale to those who show the title deed of lands, for which no 
 adequate return has been given to the right owner, in the faint 
 hope that some justice and kindness will be meted out to the 
 few that remain. There is no shadow of hope of perpetuating the 
 race, or of inducing them to adopt our civilized pursuits. But we 
 may supply their wants, provide them with shelter and attendance 
 when sick, shield them from the brutal licentiousness of their 
 white neighbours, and preserve them from their arch enemy, 
 strong drink.
 
 WILLIAM BUCKLEY, THE WILD WHITE MAN. 
 
 HAVING before alluded to this wonderful character, in the 
 " History and Settlement of Port Phillip," we propose now to 
 pursue the subject more in detail, and allow parties to speak for 
 themselves concerning him. 
 
 A work appeared a few years ago in Hobart Town, purporting 
 to be written by Buckley himself, or at his dictation, and edited 
 by Lieutenant Morgan, a veteran and esteemed member of the 
 Tasmanian Press. But there are weighty reasons of objection to 
 its authenticity. All those with whom we have consulted, who 
 knew Buckley both in Port Phillip and in Hobart Town, repudiate 
 the book. They all agree in saying that he was so dull and reserved, 
 that it was impossible to get any connected or reliable information 
 from him. When Governor Bourke saw him in 1837, he could 
 makte nothing of him. A few monosyllabic replies only could be 
 obtained. Captain Lonsdale, to whose regiment he was formerly 
 attached, vainly sought some knowledge of his career. Mr. 
 Fawkner styled him " a mindless lump of matter." Mr. George 
 Arden, the earliest writer on the colony says, "His extreme 
 reserve renders it almost impossible to learn anything from him 
 of his past life, or of his acquaintance with the aborigines." 
 Captain Stokes, the Australian voyager, observes of him : " His 
 intellect, if he ever possessed much, had almost entirely deserted 
 him, and nothing of any value could be procured from him 
 respecting the history and manners of the tribe with whom he had 
 so long dwelt." We lived for seven years in the same Town \\ith 
 Buckley, almost daily seeing his gigantic figure slowly pacing 
 along the middle of the road, with his eyes vacantly fixed upon 
 some object before him, never turning his head to either side or 
 saluting a passer by. He seemed as one not belonging to our 
 world. Not being divested of curiosity, we often endeavoured to
 
 8 
 
 gain from some on of his acquaintances a little narrative of that 
 savage life, but utterly failed in doing so. Several newspaper 
 folks tried repeatedly to worm a little out of him, through the 
 agency of the steamy vapour of the punchbowl ; but though his 
 eye might glisten a trifle, his tongue was sealed. 
 
 Admitting the work to be apocryphal, Mr. Morgan evidently took 
 pains to gather the best of information concerning the man, and 
 as such we will take it as an authority for the leading facts of his 
 history. 
 
 Born about 1780 in Macclesfield, Cheshire, Buckley was appren- 
 ticed to a bricklayer. Ten guineas bounty brought him into the 
 Cheshire Militia, from which he was draughted into the 4th or 
 King's Own regiment. We next learn, " implicated in an affair 
 which rendered me liable to punishment, &c." It is added, 
 " As the laws were strangely administered in those days, when 
 soldiers and sailors were concerned, I do not know to this hour 
 the precise character or extent of my sentence." He arrived at 
 Port Phillip a prisoner with Colonel Collins' party in October, 
 1803. When it was resolved to remove this penal settlement to 
 the banks of the Derwent, Buckley made his escape to the bush, 
 with three others ; one of these was shot by the constable. 
 Rounding the Head of the Bay over the Yarra Yarra, our 
 intelligent hero had some dim vision of reaching Sydney ; and for 
 this purpose he travelled southward, and coasted the westward 
 shore of Port Phillip. Oppressed with hunger and a sense of 
 loneliness, the Englishmen made fires to attract the notice of the 
 camp on the other side, but without success. The two prisoners 
 left their companion to walk back and surrender themselves ; but 
 they were never seen again. 
 
 Alone in this wild country, William Buckley found a cavern 
 near the beach, and subsisted for months upon shell-fish. He 
 unhappily lost his fire-stick, and was deprived of the means of 
 cooking. At length he was discovered by some natives when 
 asleep. " After seeing both my hands, they struck their breasts 
 and mine too, malcing a whine." They very reluctantly relin- 
 quished an attempt upon his stockings, and then left him. He 
 removed his quarters. Then two women saw him, and went to
 
 9 
 
 tell their husbands. A similar ceremony of beating the breasts 
 took place. Subsequently the tribe made an important discovery, 
 that he was the risen body of their deceased friend Murrangurk. 
 They expressed their joy or grief, or both by "beating their 
 breasts and heads with their clubs, the women tearing off their 
 own hair by handsfull." His inability to talk with them was not 
 surprising, "my having been made white after death, in their 
 opinion, having made me foolish." He lived many years with those 
 worthy people, until his supposed brothers and other relations 
 were killed and eaten by their enemies. Then, disgusted with the 
 race, he retired with his two adopted children, a blind boy and 
 his sister ; the former, however, was soon murdered and devoured, 
 as an expiation for the supposed crime of a native dying in 
 Buckley's hut. After the marriage and departure of his adopted 
 daughter, he was again a solitary man until joined by a young 
 woman, who preferred his society to that of her tribe. His 
 previous legal marriage is thus described by Buckley's editor : 
 " And now, reader, I come to a very important period of my 
 life, which was a decision arrived at by my friends that I should 
 take unto myself a wife. I was not in any way consulted, being 
 considered a sort of instrument in their hands to do with as 
 they might think proper. My wife was a young widow about 
 twenty years of age, tolerably good looking after a fashion, and 
 apparently very mild tempered. The marriage feast, the ring, the 
 fees for the ceremony, the bride's dress, my own, and all the rest 
 of it, did not cost much. I was not obliged to run in debt, or fork 
 out every shilling, or pay fifty per cent, for discounting a bill to 
 pay the piper, nothing of the kind ; so I took her to myself, to 
 my turf and bark hunting and fishing hut, on the banks of the 
 Karaaf River. I should here mention, that although previously 
 married, my wife did not present me on the day of our union, 
 with any tender little remembrances of her first husband, my prede- 
 cessor in her affections ! we shall see more about that presently ; 
 but, perhaps I may as well say at once, that my dearly beloved 
 played me most abominably false, for at the end of our honeymoon, 
 (perhaps it might have been a few months after that moon had 
 gone down,) one evening when we were alone in our hut,
 
 10 
 
 enjoying our domestic felicity, several men came in and took her 
 away from me by force ; she, however, going very willingly. The 
 next day, as I had no supreme court to go to for damages, I 
 went over to the tribe the intruders belonged to, and told them how 
 I had been treated. I confess I did not make a very great fuss 
 about my loss, if it was one, but endeavoured to whistle it down 
 the wind gaily. Several of the friendly natives were anxious I 
 should take the usual revenge upon her and the man she had left 
 me to live with, but I refused, and in the end, she was speared by 
 another man, with whom she had been coquetting, and to whom 
 she had also played falsely." 
 
 On two occasions he nearly renewed acquaintance with white 
 men. A vessel rode into the harbour. While the crew were on 
 shore, some of the natives swam to the ship, and stole several 
 articles. The Europeans on their return noticed their loss, and 
 sailed away immediately ; Buckley vainly attempted to attract 
 their attention. Another time a boat was stranded. Its inmates, 
 two sailors, were kindly treated, though afterwards murdered by 
 the Yarra tribe. The natives told him that once a vessel arrived in 
 the Bay, and two men were tied to a tree and shot. The period 
 of his deliverance was near. One day when upon Indented 
 Head, he met two aborigines with coloured handkerchiefs at the 
 end of their spears, and learned the news of the presence of three 
 white men and six strange blacks. These were the persons Mr. 
 Batman, the founder of Port Phillip Colony, left behind him in 
 June, 1835. The two natives furthermore told Buckley, that 
 " they were in search of another tribe, to enable those left behind 
 to murder the white people the more easily, and by so doing 
 to get possession of their property." The white blood of the man 
 was aroused at this recital, and he walked 15 miles to save his 
 countrymen. The narrative is thus given by Mr. Morgan : 
 
 " Whilst sitting in deep thought musing over all these matters, 
 I saw one of the white men take a bucket and go with it to 
 a well some way off, and when he had left it with his load, I went 
 there also, in order to gradually recover my senses, and act upon 
 my ultimate determination, whatever it might be. 
 
 "From the well I had a good view of all about me, and observed
 
 11 
 
 that the natives had pitched their tents near those of the white 
 men ; the former being seated round their fires, evidently in great 
 excitement. Presently some of the natives saw me, and turning 
 round, pointed me out to one of the white people, and seeing they 
 had done so, I walked away from the well, up to their place, and 
 seated myself there, having my spears and other war and hunting 
 implements between my legs. The white men could not make 
 me out ; my half-cast colour, and extraordinary height and 
 figure dressed or rather undressed as I was, completely con- 
 founded them as to my real character. At length one of them came 
 up and asked me some questions which I could not understand ; 
 but when he offered me bread, calling it by its name, a cloud 
 appeared to pass from over my brain, and I soon repeated that 
 and other English words after him. Somehow or other I soon made 
 myself understood to them as not being a native-born, and so 
 the white men took me to their tents, and clothed me, giving me 
 biscuit, tea and meat ; and they were, indeed, all very kind in every 
 way. My sensations I cannot describe ; and, as I could not 
 explain them in my mother tongue, I showed the initials W. B. 
 on one of my arms, by which they began readily to sympathize 
 and look upon me as a long lost cast-away seaman, and treated me 
 accordingly, by giving me well cooked food, shelter and raiment. 
 Word by word I began to comprehend what they said, and soon 
 understood as if by instinct, that they intended to remain in the 
 country ; that they had seen several of the native chiefs, with 
 whom, as they said, they had exchanged all sorts of things for 
 land." 
 
 Batman's Association engaged Buckley as a sort of Interpreter 
 at a salary of 50, and Mr. Gellibrand furnished him with a 
 horse. His business was to forward friendly intercourse between 
 the Whites and Blacks. Capt. Lonsdale placed him on the staff of 
 constables June 4th, 1836. Before this, however, he had 
 obtained a free pardon from Colonel Arthur, August 25th, 1835, 
 through the kind intercession of Messrs. Batman and Wedge. 
 He left Port Phillip for Hobart Town soon after the coming of 
 Capt. Lonsdale. The following is the reason assigned for his 
 departure ; " Finding some persons were continually throwing
 
 12 
 
 difficulties in the way of my interests, and not knowing what 
 might be the result, I determined on resigning office, and on 
 leaving a Colony where my services were so little known and so 
 badly appreciated by the principal authorities." The truth of it 
 was, that he was seen to be thoroughly useless. When we had 
 first the honor of his acquaintance, in 1841, he was a sort of con- 
 stable at the Female Factory in Liverpool Street, Hobart Town. 
 He had just before married the widow of an emigrant. It was 
 amusing to see the two walking together ; the lady could just 
 reach up her fingers to lay hold of his arm, and seldom was a 
 word exchanged between them. He had a pension of 12 from 
 the Tasmanian Government, and 40 from ours. While being 
 driven out in a gig in January, 1856, he was forcibly thrown out, 
 and severely injured. After every attention to his case, he 
 departed this life ; he was buried on February 2nd, 1856. 
 
 There is diversity of opinions about this history. Mr. Fawkner 
 and others charge the man with connivance with the natives 
 in stealing sheep, and killing shepherds. It is certain that he 
 took no steps to conciliate either party ; but we believe this arose 
 more from his indifference and sullen apathy, than from active 
 sympathy with his black friends. The man who could live with 
 a wild tribe for thirty two years, without an attempt to elevate that 
 people in the smallest degree, was not one to act as a Protector 
 of the, Aborigines. An old colonist assured us that he heard him 
 say, that he wished the whites had never come. Poor Simon, 
 the son of Jagga Jagga, gave us the other day his people's version 
 of the Buckley story. He never had connection with the other 
 tribe, and Simon's account was a traditionary one. The strange 
 man was found sleeping under a tree. For some time he would 
 not eat. He could speak the Blacks' language. The tribe 
 gathered round, knew him to be their returned brother, and cried 
 much over him. Simon furthermore states that he knew a son 
 of Buckley's, with "plenty one big beard, all the same me." 
 The Wild White Man always said that he never had a child of his 
 own." Several living parties attest to the knowledge of his 
 children. 
 
 We close our description of this incomprehensible but highly
 
 13 
 
 interesting individual, by a recital of John Helder Wedge, Esq., 
 M.L.C., of Tasmania, and one of the most active of Batman's 
 Port Phillip Association. The document was furnished to the 
 Home Government by Colonel Arthur in 1836, and then forwarded 
 for insertion in the Koyal Geographical Society's Journal. 
 
 "A short time," writes Mr. Wedge, "previous to the abandon- 
 ment of the settlement by Colonel Collins, he absconded with 
 two other men, named Marmon and Pye ; the latter left his 
 companions before they reached the river at the northern extrem- 
 ity of the Port, being exhausted with the want of food and other 
 privations. Marmon remained with Buckley till they had wandered 
 nearly round the Port, but left him somewhere on Indented 
 Head, with the intention of returning to the establishment ; but 
 neither he nor Pye was never heard of afterwards. Buckley thus 
 alone continued his wanderings along the beach, and completed 
 the circuit of the Port ; he at last became weary of such a 
 very precarious existence, and determined upon returning. 
 Soon after he had reached on his return back the neighbourhood of 
 Indented Head, he fell in with the family of natives with whom 
 he continued to live till the 12th of July, 1835, the day on which 
 he joined the party left by Mr. Batman. 
 
 " His memory fails him as to dates, but he supposes his 
 falling in with the natives to have occurred about twelve mouths 
 after his leaving the establishment. The natives received him 
 with great kindness ; he soon attached himself to the chief named 
 Nullaboin, and accompanied him in all his wanderings. From 
 the time of his being abandoned by his companions till his 
 final return to the establishment, a period of thirty-three years, he 
 had not seen a white man. For the first few years his mind 
 and time were fully occupied in guarding against the treachery 
 of strange Indians, and in procuring food; he, however, soon 
 acquired a perfect knowledge of the language, adopted the native 
 habits, and became quite as one of the community. The natives 
 gave him a wife, but discovering that she had a preference for 
 another, he relinquished her ; though the woman and her paramour 
 forfeited their lives, having violated the custom which prevails 
 among them ; for, when a woman is promised as a wife, which
 
 14 
 
 generally happens as soon as she is born, it is considered a most 
 binding engagement, the forfeiture is visited with the most sum- 
 mary vengeance. Buckley has had no children either legitimate 
 or illegitimate ; during the whole time of his residence his adven- 
 tures here have been devoid of any remarkable interest, having 
 passed nearly the whole of his time in the vicinity of Indented 
 Head, excepting only upon one occasion, when he travelled about 
 150 miles to the westward of Port Phillip. 
 
 " He describes the natives as cannibals, rude and barbarous in 
 their customs, but well disposed towards the white man. He was 
 unable to introduce among them any essential improvements, feeling 
 that his safety chiefly depended on his conforming exactly to all 
 their habits and customs. Although he was always anxious to 
 return to civilized life, he had for many years abandoned all hopes 
 of so doing. The following circumstance, however, eventually 
 restored him to his countrymen. Two natives residing at the 
 establishment left by Mr. Batman had stolen an axe, and having 
 by others been assured that the theft would be severely punished, 
 they absconded, and eventually fell in with Buckley, communicated 
 to him the fact of white men being in the neighbourhood, and 
 their reason for running away ; also saying that they would procure 
 other natives, and return and spear the white men. Buckley 
 succeeded in dissuading them from this outrage, and proceeded in 
 search of Mr. Batman's party, and in two days succeeded in joining 
 them. The Europeans were living in a miserable hut, with several 
 native families . encamped around them. On being observed, 
 Buckley caused great surprize, and indeed some alarm ; his gigantic 
 stature, his height being nearly six feet six inches, enveloped in a 
 kangaroo skin rug : his long beard and hair of thirty three years 
 growth, together with his spears, shields and clubs, it may readily 
 be supposed presented a most extraordinary appearance. The 
 Europeans believed him to be some great chief, and were in no 
 little trepidation as to his intentions being friendly or not. Buckley 
 proceeded at once to the encampments, and seated himself among 
 the natives, taking no notice of the white men, who, however, 
 quickly detected, to their great astonishment, the features of 
 an European ; and after considerable difficulty, succeeded in
 
 15 
 
 learning who he was. He could not in the least express himself 
 in English ; but after the lapse of ten or twelve days, he was 
 enabled to speak with tolerable fluency, though he frequently 
 inadvertently used the language of the natives. The family with 
 whom Buckley so long resided were greatly attached to him, and 
 bitterly lamented his leaving them. He resides at present at 
 the settlement formed by the gentlemen who have associated 
 to form a new colony, through the means of the friendly interest 
 which has been here established. He expresses his intention of 
 remaining at present, for the purpose of being the medium of 
 communication with the natives. On his receiving the conditional 
 pardon which his Excellency the Governor most humanely and 
 promptly forwarded to him, on his case being made known, and 
 hearing of the meritorious assistance he had afforded the settlers, 
 he was most deeply affected ; and nothing could exceed the joy 
 he evinced at once more feeling himself a free man, received 
 again within the pale of civilized society." 
 
 Mr. Wedge, having recently most generously and courteously 
 furnished us with important, official and private, information about 
 Buckley, especially in relation to correspondence respecting his 
 Free Pardon, we gladly give to the public a selection from this 
 literary treasure. 
 
 Referring to Marmon, the runaway companion of Buckley's, 
 Mr. Wedge observes : " From what he has since told me, I believe 
 he was mistaken in this name." Although it had been stated that 
 the Wild White Man had had no children, Mr. Wedge adds, " He 
 has since pointed out to me a woman that he says is his daughter." 
 In explaining further the contemplated attack upon the eight men 
 left behind by Batman, our informant writes, " Buckley dissuaded 
 them from making the attempt, stating that there were a great 
 many white men where they came from, and that if any of the 
 white men were killed, numbers would come, and kill every black 
 man they could find. Thus intimidated, they abandoned their 
 intentions." In his description of the first visit to the New 
 Country, we have the following sketch : " On one occasion Buckley 
 accompanied me on an excursion for a week, during which we fell 
 in with the family he had lived with. It' I had any doubts as to
 
 16 
 
 the fact of his never having seen a white man during his residence 
 with the natives, (and I confess, knowing that the sealers were in 
 the habit of sometimes visiting this part of the coast, I was not 
 without them at first,) they were now entirely removed. Nullaboin 
 and his family had never seen a white man with the exception of 
 Buckley, till he saw me. He received and examined me with great 
 curiosity, opening my waistcoat and shirt to see whether the whole 
 of my body was white." But subsequently the memory of the slow 
 man returned, and he gave another version. With the monotony 
 of scene and life among his Black Friends for the long period of 
 thirty years, we would fain excuse this lapse of intellect, especially 
 from a knowledge of the man's mental infirmities. We subjoin Mr. 
 Wedge's statement : 
 
 " During a ride with Buckley on my second visit to Port Phillip, 
 he corrected his former statement of never having seen a white man 
 during his residence with the natives. He stated that on one 
 occasion a small craft was in the Port, not far from its entrance. 
 He was on the Peninsula on the eastern side of Swan Bay, on 
 Indented Head, when a boat from the craft with three or four men 
 in it put on shore, I think I understood him, for the purpose of 
 burying one of their companions. He watched them unobserved 
 for some time till they were about returning to their vessel, when 
 he made his appearance, and intimated his wish, by repeating the 
 few words of English that he could remember at the moment, to 
 accompany them. They probably mistook him for a native, as they 
 might do from his long beard, hair, spears, &c., and being habitted 
 in his opossum rug, and took no heed of him. On the following 
 morning they came again on shore and coo-eyed, (i.e. called out) 
 as he supposes for the purpose of his again making his appearance. 
 But he had changed his mind, suspecting them of treachery, and 
 remained concealed amongst the trees and shrubs on the Peninsula. 
 This was the only time he had seen a white man, and as he had no 
 intercourse with them, the circumstance might not occur to him 
 when he joined our party." 
 
 The interesting documents connected with the pardon of Buckley 
 are now appended, and furnish the most lucid and faithful account 
 of this marvellous person.
 
 17 
 
 " The Humble Petition of William Buckley, to His Excellency 
 Colontl George Arthur, Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's 
 Land, sheweth 
 
 " That your Petitioner was a private in the Cheshire Supple- 
 mentary Militia about two years, when he volunteered into the 4th 
 Regiment of Foot, or King's Own, of which regiment he was 
 attached to the third Batallion, and continued therein between two 
 and three years, during which time he accompanied that regiment 
 in the expedition to Holland. 
 
 " That your Petitioner was afterwards convicted of receiving 
 stolen property, and was transported for life. 
 
 " That your Petitioner arrived at Port Phillip, New Holland, 
 about thirty years ago, and on the breaking up of the establishment 
 your petitioner with two others, (the name of one of whom was 
 William Marmon) absconded and subsisted on the sea coast for about 
 twelve months, when he fell in with a family of natives, with whom 
 he has continued up to the present time. That your Petitioner has 
 at various times, suffered great privations from the want of food. 
 
 " That your Petitioner, previously to his joining the natives, 
 returned to Port Phillip, with the intention of surrendering himself 
 to the authorities, but was prevented from doing so by the departure 
 of the establishment. 
 
 " That your Petitioner has never seen a white man since that 
 period, until he came to the establishment formed by Mr. Batman, 
 Mr. Wedge, and other gentlemen, on the July, 1835. 
 
 "That your Petitioner, two days previously to joining the 
 establishment, learnt from two natives that white men were in the 
 neighbourhood, and that they with others intended to spear them, 
 for the sake of the plunder they would get. 
 
 ' That your Petitioner remonstrated with them, and dissuaded 
 them from their intentions ; that your Petitioner has ever since 
 exerted himself and has succeeded in convincing them of the 
 friendly disposition of the white men towards the natives. 
 
 " That your Petitioner will continue to do all in his power to 
 render permanent the good understanding that has been established, 
 for which services your Petitioner humbly prays for the indulgence 
 of a Free Pardon, and your Petitioner will ever pray."
 
 L8 
 
 Letter from Mr. Wedge, at Port Phillip, to the Colonial S 
 tary, accompanying the petition : 
 
 " Sir, In reference to the petition of William Buckley for a tret 
 pardon, which I have the honor to transmit herewith, I beg to bear 
 testimony to the essential service he has rendered in becoming the 
 means of communication with the natives, and I have no hesitation 
 in saying that through him there is every probability of making 
 permanent the friendly intercourse that was commenced by Mr. 
 Batman in his recent excursion (already detailed by that gentleman 
 to the government) with the Aborigines ; and from the fact of his 
 having saved the lives of the eight men who were left here by Mr. 
 Batman, together with the circumstance of his having made a 
 voluntary offer of becoming in future the medium of communication 
 with the Aborigines. I beg most earnestly to recommend his 
 petition to the favorable consideration of His Excellency the 
 Lieuteuant-Governor ; and in doing so, I feel that I scarcely need 
 advert to the danger that would ensue to the lives of those who 
 may in future reside here, by his being driven to despair by the 
 refusal of his petition, which would probably induce him to join 
 the natives again ; and in which event there is no calculating on 
 the mischief that might ensue by the hostile feelings that he would 
 have it in his power to instil into the breasts of the natives. I 
 doubt not, as an act of humanity toward those who may come to 
 sojourn in this settlement, the above circumstance will have weight 
 in the consideration His Excellency will bestow on the prayer of 
 the petition. If I might be allowed, I would respectfully suggest 
 that it should at once be conceded to him, and his free pardon sent 
 by the next vessel that will be despatched to this place. Buckley 
 is a most interesting character ; from his long residence amongst 
 the natives, he has acquired a great influence over them, as well 
 as all their habits and language ; in fact, he had nearly forgot his 
 native tongue, and it was some days before he could express him- 
 self in it. The two men who absconded with him left him before 
 he joined the natives ; and he has never heard of them since ; he 
 supposes they were killed by them. Buckley is gigantic in size, 
 measuring six feet five inches and seven-eighths without 
 shoes, and of good proportions ; and I have no doubt he is
 
 19 
 
 indebted for his life to his ferocious appearance. From the cir- 
 cumstance of his having been obliged to direct the whole of his 
 attention to self-preservation, and to procuring food for subsistence, 
 his memory has almost altogether failed him as to time and events 
 which occurred previous to his leaving England. He forgets the 
 name of the vessel he came in, as well as that of the Captain, and 
 the Commandant of the Settlement. From his information, the 
 natives are in the lowest grade of ignorance, having no idea of a 
 Supreme Being ; and although I have had but a short intercourse 
 with them, I am inclined to give credence to his statement, and I 
 have acquired sufficient confidence in them to trust myself amongst 
 them in excursions into the interior. I went about twelve miles 
 with them yesterday. 
 
 " I have, &c., 
 
 " JNO. H. WEDGE. 
 " To Captain Montagu, 
 
 "Colonial Secretary." 
 
 Then follows the usual prison description of his person : 
 Description of William Buckley : 
 
 Height, without shoes, six feet five inches and seven-eights. 
 
 Age, Fifty-three. 
 
 Trade, Bricklayer. 
 
 Complexion, Brown. 
 
 Head, Round. 
 
 Hair, Dark Brown. 
 
 Visage, Round, and marked with small pox. 
 
 Forehead, Low. 
 
 Eyebrows, Bushy. 
 
 Eyes, Hazel. 
 
 Nose, Pointed and turned up. 
 
 Native Place, Marton, near Macclesfield, Cheshire. 
 
 Remarks : Well proportioned, with an erect military gait ; 
 Mermaid on upper part of right arm. Sun, half moon, seven stars, 
 monkey. W. B. on lower part of right arm. 
 
 JNO. H. W.
 
 20 
 
 To this appeal from Port Phillip there came a prompt and favour- 
 able reply from Governor Arthur. 
 
 " Van Diemen's Land, 
 
 " Colonial Secretary's Office, 
 
 " 25th August, 1835. 
 
 " Sir, Having submitted to the Lieutenant-Governor your letter 
 of the 9th of July last, enclosing a Petition from William Buckley, 
 a runaway convict recently discovered at Port Phiilip, after having 
 been for some years domesticated with the natives of that part of 
 the Coast of New Holland ; and His Excellency having considered 
 the subject of your representation of this man's conduct and the 
 services he has rendered in promoting a friendly disposition between 
 the Aborigines with whom he has been so long time associated, and 
 the whites who have recently visited the coast of New Holland, I 
 am directed to acquaint you, that the Lieutenant-Governor is doubt- 
 ful how far he is authorised to grant a free pardon to William 
 Buckley, as he is not within the jurisdiction of this government, 
 but His Excellency has notwithstanding acquiesced in the preparation 
 of the usual instrument, in the hope, that from considerations of 
 policy, the indulgence will be acceded to by His Majesty's govern- 
 ment. 
 
 "I am further desired to inform you that the Lieutenant-Governor's 
 compliance with your request in this case, is founded upon a desire 
 to prevent bloodshed, and with a view to remove any inducement on 
 Buckley's part to make common cause with the natives in the 
 commission of any outrages upon the White Immigrants, which 
 might lay the foundation of a war of extermination, and His 
 Excellency also entertains the sanguine expectation, that if this 
 man's energies and influence be well directed, the Aborigines may 
 be so thoroughly conciliated as to ensure a lasting amity between 
 them and the present or any future Immigrants to that part of the 
 coast of New Holland. 
 
 " I am further to signify the desire of His Excellency, tnat it may 
 be distinctly understood, that the reasons stated in this letter, form 
 the only grounds for the present concession which must not be
 
 21 
 
 construed into the admission of any claim made by the gentlemen 
 associated with Mr. Batman to the Territory at Port Phillip or any 
 part thereof. 
 
 I have the honor to be, 
 Sir, 
 
 Your very obedient servant, 
 
 JOHN MONTAGU." 
 
 Mr. Wedge, as in duty bound, acknowledged this favor, although 
 lie did not do so until his return to his Tasmanian home, at Leigh- 
 land, near Boss. 
 
 Leighland, 15th October, 1835. 
 
 " Sir, I had the honor of receiving your letter, accompanied 
 with the free pardon for William Buckley, which was forwarded to 
 me at Port Phillip. 
 
 " In acknowledging the receipt of them, I beg to express the 
 obligations I am under for the humane and prompt attention paid 
 by the Lieutenant Governor, to my representation of Buckley's 
 case ; and I was especially directed by him to convey his thanks 
 to His Excellency for his Free Pardon, and also his assurance that 
 he will do all in his power to perpetuate the friendly understanding 
 with the natives that was so fortunately established through the 
 treaty effected by Mr. Batman in last June, and it is with much 
 satisfaction that I can state from the observations I had an oppor- 
 tunity of making, whilst residing amongst them, that there is every 
 chance of a continuance of the good understanding, provided a 
 proper system be observed in our future intercourse." 
 I have the honor to be, 
 
 Sir, 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 JNO. H, WEDGE."
 
 22 
 
 THE WILD WHITE MAN'S PORT PHILLIP 
 
 BLACK FRIENDS. 
 
 BUCKLEY ran away from the English Penal Settlement of Port 
 Phillip at the end of December, 1803 ; that establishment being 
 removed to the banks of the Derwent, in Van Diemen's Land, a 
 few weeks after his flight. The tribe with whom he found favour, 
 and dwelt for so many years, lived on that coast of the Bay oppo- 
 site to the prisoners' establishment, and had no association with 
 the Whites ; from the hostility of the native communities, the 
 Geelong men were not likely even to hear of the arrival of these 
 curious strangers. It was otherwise with the Port Phillip Bay 
 Blacks, whose hunting grounds extended eastward as well as 
 northward of the Port, and who could not avoid knowledge of their 
 wonderful neighbours. We have two sources of information res- 
 pecting this intercourse ; the journal of the Rev. Robert Knopwood, 
 Chaplain to the Settlement, and afterwards the first Chaplain of 
 HobartTown ; and the published work of Lieutenant J. H. Tuckey, 
 of the Calcutta, the vessel that brought Governor Collins out to 
 this Colony in 1803. 
 
 The notices of our Black Friends by the Clergyman are these : 
 October 10. " Three natives came to us, and were very friendly." 
 October 22. On that day is entered the intelligence of Gammon 
 and Harris being beset by Blacks, and calling upon Lieut. Tuckey 
 to fire. Upon firing over their heads, they all dispersed. But 
 the Chief returned, ornamented with a turban crown. Fresh pro- 
 vocations being received, a charge was made. We quote the 
 journal : " Mr. Tuckey fired over them a second time, at which 
 they again retired a short distance. They were in great numbers, 
 and all armed. Finding that none of their party were wounded by 
 the firing, they again advanced ; but when one of them was about 
 to throw his spear at Mr. Tuckey, he gave orders to shoot him as 
 an example. Our people fired, and killed him, and another was 
 wounded ; on which they all fled. Had not Mr. Tuckey fortunately 
 come up with his boat, there is no doubt but that they would have 
 killed Mr. Gammon and Mr. Harris and their two men, and perhaps 
 have eaten them, for there is great reason to believe they are 
 cannibals."
 
 23 
 
 LIEUTENANT TUCKEY'S NARRATIVE. 
 
 This officer informs the reader, that Colonel Collins, the Governor, 
 Captain Woodriff, and himself, had an interview with some natives, 
 who " came unarmed to the boats, without the smallest symptom 
 of apprehension." Having to proceed toward the head of the 
 Port in boats, the Lieutenant on duty found himself surrounded by 
 about 200 armed natives. While the attention of the Whites was 
 distracted by the throng, some clever fellows contrived to steal from 
 the boat a tomahawk, an axe, and a saw. In the mel6e, one of 
 the natives seized the Master's Mate in his arms. If disposed to 
 be quarrelsome, we imagine the spear or boomerang would have 
 been thrown, and not the baby carrying process adopted. If they 
 desired a choice morsel for supper, they would hardly have fondled 
 their victim in that style ; as they never take prisoners alive, and 
 torture them like the American Indians. At any rate, these 
 " obviously hostile intentions made the application of firearms 
 absolutely necessary to repel them, by which one native was killed 
 and two or three wounded." This was the baptism of blood. It 
 provoked revenge. The aborigines rallied their forces on the hill. 
 A fine looking man, as Chief, came down alone in a most heroic 
 manner to the tent, talking vehemently, and holding a very large 
 war spear in a position for throwing. The British officer was 
 struck with this gallant fellow, and determined to meet him frankly 
 and kindly. He had confidence in the man because of his courage, 
 and, therefore, laid down his gun, and went to meet the savage. 
 The noble minded aborigine appreciated the white man's trustful- 
 ness, and immediately relinquished the spear. But the tribe kept 
 on their vociferations and their warlike demonstrations, and were 
 advancing down the hill. Tuckey motioned the Chief to keep 
 them back. He issued his command for them to retire. But not 
 comprehending his language in the tumult, or disregarding his 
 entreaties if heard, they tarried not in their progress ; they wanted 
 blood for blood. Not a moment was to be lost. The foremost in 
 the throng was selected, and laid low by a musket ball. At the 
 dreadful sound the Chief turned and fled with his retreating 
 countrymen. 
 
 Mr. Tuckey gives a sketch of our sable acquaintances. " The
 
 21 
 
 men were gaily adorned with pipe-clay painted faces, a head dress 
 of swan's feathers, a necklace of reeds, and a bone or reed thrust 
 fancifully through the septum of their nostrils." The only notice 
 of the ladies is this , " One woman only was seen, who retired by 
 desire of the men on our approach." The men were seen not to 
 have their front tooth out like their neighbours at Sydney. The 
 straw baskets were praised more than their spears, or their intelli- 
 gence ; for says our writer, " I should imagine the kangaroos out 
 of the reach of their weapons or their ingenuity." As to their 
 vanity, he tells us, " The Parisian beau cannot take greater pains 
 in adjusting his hair, and perfume himself with the odours of the 
 East, than the savage does in bedaubing his face with clays, or 
 anointing his skin with the blubber of a whale." 
 
 THE FRENCH AND THE BLACKS IN 1803. 
 
 Peron, the naturalist on board Admiral Baudin's French dis- 
 covery ship, Geographe, gives about the earliest notice of our 
 Aborigines. Entering Flinders' Western Port in 1803, the 
 Frenchmen named an island Frenchman, now French. It was 
 there that Peron had his first interview with our natives, most 
 probably the first of the kind, excepting the glance with which 
 Flinders had been favoured some weeks before in Port Phillip Bay. 
 Though short the description, it is important. 
 
 " Such of the natives they saw seemed mistrustful and perfidious. 
 In their features, the shape of the head, the smoothness and great 
 length of the hair, the inhabitants differ from D'Entrecasteaux 
 Channel. (Tasmania.) They paint their body and face with stripes, 
 crosses, white and red circles ; and pierce the nostrils, through which 
 they thrust a small stick six or seven inches long, like the Aborigi- 
 nes of Port Jackson. They wear collar fashion a sort of necklace, 
 formed of a number of short tubes of coarse straw. They blacken 
 their body and face with powdered charcoal. Of thirteen individ- 
 uals seen, one only was clothed with a black skin, the other twelve 
 being wholly naked."
 
 25 
 
 STURT AND THE MURRAY BLACKS IN 1830. 
 
 Captain Charles Sturt, the devoted and successful Australian 
 explorer, set out for Sydney in November, 1829, and succeeded 
 in following down the Murray river to its embouchure through Lake 
 Victoria into Encounter Bay, South Australia. First tracing our 
 northern boundary, he was the earliest European visitant of those 
 distant tribes. It will be seen that though these had not before 
 seen a white man, they had to a fearful extent experienced in an 
 indirect manner the curse of contact. New and loathesome diseases 
 appeared among them, for the suffering of which they had no means 
 of alleviation. Both in going down the stream and in returning, 
 Mr. Sturt came in sight of thousands of natives. His courage 
 prompted him to undertake so adventurous a journey, and his 
 benevolence occasioned that perilous expedition to be unattended 
 with bloodshed. For further particulars of that voyage we refer 
 the reader to the " Discovery and Settlement of Port Phillip ; " we 
 have now to confine our remarks to the Captain's intercourse with 
 Buckley's Black Friends. He thus introduces his first visit from 
 the Murray tribes. 
 
 " Some natives were observed running by the river -side behind 
 us, but on turning the boat's head toward the shore, they ran 
 away. It was evident they had no idea what we were, and, from 
 their timidity, feeling assured that it would be impossible to bring 
 them to a parley, we continued onwards till our usual hour of 
 stopping, when we pitched our tents on the left bank for the night, 
 it being the one opposite to that on which the natives had appeared. 
 We conjectured that their curiosity would lead them to follow us, 
 which they very shortly did ; for we had scarcely made ourselves 
 comfortable, when we heard their wild notes through the woods as 
 they advanced towards the river ; and their breaking into view with 
 their spears and shields, and painted and prepared as they were for 
 battle, was extremely fine. They stood threatening us, and making 
 a great noise, for a considerable time, but finding that we took no 
 notice of them, they at length became quiet. I then walked to 
 some distance from the party, and taking a branch in my hand, as 
 a sign of peace, beckoned them to swim to our side of the river, 
 which, after some time, two or three of them did. But they
 
 approached me with great caution, hesitating at every step. They 
 soon, however, gained confidence, and were ultimately joined by all 
 the males of their tribe. I gave the first who swam the river a 
 tomahawk, (making this a rule in order to encourage them,) with 
 which he was highly delighted. I shortly afterwards placed them 
 all in a row, and fired a gun before them : they were quite unpre- 
 pared for such an explosion, and after standing stupified and 
 motionless for a moment or two, they simultaneously took to their 
 heels, to our great amusement. I succeeded, however, in calling 
 them back, and they regained their confidence so much, that sixteen 
 of them remained with us all night, but the greater number retired 
 at sunset. On the following morning they accompanied us down 
 the river, where we fell in with their tribe, who were stationed on 
 an elevated bank, a short distance below, to the number of eighty- 
 three, men, women, and children. Their appearance was extremely 
 picturesque and singular. They wanted us to land, but time was 
 too precious for such delays. Some of the boldest of the natives 
 swam round and round the boat, so as to impede the use of the oars, 
 and the women on the bank evinced their astonishment by mingled 
 yells and cries. They entreated us, by signs, to remain with them ; 
 but as I foresaw a compliance on this occasion would hereafter be 
 attended with inconvenience, I thought it better to proceed on our 
 journey ; and the natives soon ceased their importunities, and, 
 indeed, did not follow or molest us. 
 
 ****** 
 " On the 19th, as we were about to conclude our journey for the 
 day, we saw a large body of natives before us. On approaching 
 them they shewed every disposition for combat, and ran along the 
 banks with spears in rests, as if only waiting for an opportunity to 
 throw them at us. They were upon the right, and as the river was 
 broad enough to enable me to steer wide of them, I did not care 
 much for their threats ; but upon another party appearing on the 
 left bank, I thought it high time to disperse one or other of them, 
 as the channel was not wide enough to enable me to keep clear of 
 danger, if assailed by both, as I might be while keeping amid the 
 channel. I found, however, they did not know how to use the 
 advantage they possessed, as the two divisions formed a junction
 
 27 
 
 those on the left swimming over to the stronger body upon the 
 right bank. This fortunately prevented the necessity of any 
 hostile measure on my part, and we were suffered to proceed unmo- 
 lested for the present. The whole then followed us, without any 
 symptom of fear, but making a dreadful shouting, and beating their 
 spears and shields together, by way of intimidation. It is but 
 justice to my men to say, that in all this critical situation, they 
 evinced the greatest coolness, though it was impossible for any one 
 to witness such a scene with indifference. As I did not intend to 
 fatigue the men by continuing to pull farther than we were in tlie 
 habit of doing, we landed at our usual time on the left bank, and 
 while the people were pitching the tents, I walked down the bank with 
 McLeay, to treat with these desperadoes in the best way we could 
 across the water a measure to which my men showed great reluc- 
 tance, declaring that if during our absence the natives approached 
 them, they would undoubtedly fire upon them. I assured them it 
 was not my intention to go out of their sight. We took our guns 
 with us, but determined not to use them until the last extremity, 
 both from a reluctance to shed blood, and with a view to our future 
 security. I held a long pantomimical dialogue with them across 
 the water, and held out the olive branch in token of amity. They 
 at length laid aside their spears, and a long consultation took 
 place among them, which ended in two or three wading into the 
 river, contrary, as it appeared, to the earnest remonstrance of the 
 majority, who, finding that their entreaties had no effect, wept 
 aloud, and followed them, with a determination, I am sure, of 
 sharing their fate, whatever it might have been. As soon as 
 they landed, McLey and I retired to a little distance from the 
 bank and sat down, that being the usual way among the natives 
 of the interior to invite to an interview. When they saw us act 
 thus, they approached and sat down with us, but without looking 
 up, from a kind of diffidence peculiar to them, and which exists 
 even among the nearest relatives, as I have already had occasion 
 to observe. As they gained confidence, however, they showed 
 an excessive curiosity, and stared at us in the most earnest 
 manner. We now led them to the camp, and I gave, a.s was 
 my custom, the first approached, a tomahawk, and to the others
 
 2S 
 
 some pieces of iron hoop. Those who had crossed the river, 
 amounted to about thirty-five in number. At sunset the majority 
 of them left us ; but three old men remained at the fire-side 
 all night. I observed that few of them had either lost their 
 front teeth, or lacerated their bodies, as the more westerly tribea 
 do. The most loathsome diseases prevailed among them. Several 
 were disabled by leprosy, or some similar disorder, and two or 
 three had entirely lost their sight. They are, undoubtedly, a 
 brave and confiding people, and are by no means wanting in 
 natural affection. In person they resemble the mountain tribes. 
 They have the thick lips, the sunken eye, the extendid nostril, and 
 long beards ; and both smooth and curly hair are common among 
 them. Their lower extremities appear to bear no proportion to 
 their bust in point of muscular strength, but the facility with 
 which they ascend trees of the largest growth, and the activity 
 with which they move upon all. occasions, together with their sin- 
 gular erect stature, argue that such appearance is entirely decep- 
 tive. The old men slept very soundly by the fire, and were the 
 last to get up in the morning. McLeay's extreme good humour 
 had made a most favourable impression upon them, and I can 
 picture him even now, joining in their wild cry. Whether it was 
 from his entering so readily into their mirth, or from anything 
 peculiar that struck them, the impression upon the whole of us 
 was, that they took him to have been originally a black, in conse- 
 quence of which they gave him the name of Rundi. Certain it is, 
 they pressed him to show his side, and asked if he had not received 
 a wound there evidently as if the original Rundi had met 
 with a violent death from a spear-wound in that place. The whole 
 tribe, amounting in number to upwards of 150, assembled to see 
 us take our departure. Four of them accompanied us, among 
 whom there was one remarkable for personal strength and stature." 
 It was the next day after this interview that our countrymen 
 nearly fared the fate of Mungo Park in Africa. Turning an angle 
 in the river, they saw a vast concourse of some five or six hundred 
 natives, armed and wrathful, prepared to take vengeance upon the 
 White strangers for this invasion of their country. A projecting 
 Baudbank afforded better approach to their victims ; on this the
 
 29 
 
 leaders in brutal glee awaited the drifting of the boat. The danger 
 was imminent. The guns were ready, the very finger was on the 
 trigger, when Mr. McLeay called out that another party were 
 approaching on the opposite bank. In a moment after, a man 
 threw himself off a lofty cliff into the. water, swam up to a big 
 savage on the shore, seized him by his throat, and forcibly pushed 
 him back from the river. " At one moment," says Sturt, "pointing 
 to the boat, at another shaking his clenched fist in the faces of the 
 most forward, and stamping with passion on the sand." This was 
 their gigantic friend, who arrived in time to save them. The leader 
 closes the story in these words : " We were so wholly lost in 
 interest at the scene that was passing, that the boat was allowed to 
 drift at pleasure. For my own part, I was overwhelmed with 
 astonishment, and in truth stunned and' confused, so singular, so 
 unexpected, and so strikingly providential had been our escape." 
 
 Upon another occasion they were relieved from a difficulty by the 
 same noble hearted man. The boat had got fast, and a large tribe 
 came unexpectedly upon them. But the well known voice of their 
 tall, dark brother was heard ; Sturt shouted in reply, and signal- 
 ized distress. Plenty of bark canoes were launched immediately ; 
 using their spears for poles and paddles, the natives pushed off 
 the boat, and set the Europeans afloat again. We are distressed, 
 however, to read in Captain Sturt's journal such passages as follow : 
 " The most loathsome of diseases prevailed among the tribes, nor 
 were the youngest infants exempt from them. Indeed, so young 
 were some whose condition was truly disgusting, that I cannot but 
 suppose that they have been born in a state of disease." "Syphilis 
 prevails amongst them with fearful violence. I distributed some 
 Turner's cerate to the women, but left Fraser to superintend its 
 application. It would do no good, of course, but it convinced the 
 natives we intended well toward them, and on that account it was 
 politic to give it, setting aside any humane feeling." His prudence 
 showed itself in his discipline ; thus he says, " I was particularly 
 careful not to do anything that would alarm them, or to permit any 
 liberty to be taken with their women. Our reserve in this respect 
 seemed to excite their surprize, for they asked sundry questions, by 
 eigns and expressions, as to whether we had any women, and where
 
 30 
 
 they were. The whole tribe generally assembled to receive us, and 
 all, without exception, were in a complete state of nudity ; and 
 really the loathesome condition and hideous countenances of the 
 women would, I should imagine, have been a complete antidote to 
 the sensual passion." He furthermore tells us, " with every new 
 tribe we were obliged to submit to an examination, and to be pulled 
 about, and fingered all over." 
 
 MAJOR MITCHELL AND THE BLACKS, IN 1836. 
 
 This distinguished discoverer of what he called AUSTRALIA 
 FELIX, arrived at Lake Benanee by the Murray, July 27, 1836. 
 To his surprise he fell in with a tribe with whom he had a brush 
 some two hundred miles off upon the Darling. They called out, 
 " Goway, goway, goway ;" which, being interpreted, means, " Come 
 here." Piper, the Sydney aboriginal guide, did not admire their 
 contiguity, and seriously asked his leader, what the Governor said 
 to him about killing the " Wild Blackfellow ;" giving a significant 
 idea of his estimation of their value. Though at first the tribe 
 assumed friendly appearances, there was not wanting proof of their 
 hostile spirit. An old fellow approached the Major quite confi- 
 dently and smilingly, with a bundle of spears concealed beneath 
 his kangaroo rug. But they were prepared. It was noticed that 
 the rascals, with the cunning of foxes, understood the business of 
 getting guns ready. A few shots procured " permanent deliverance 
 of the party from imminent danger." It was among these people 
 that the explorer saw an Australian beauty. " The youngest," 
 says he, " was the handsomest female I had ever seen among the 
 natives. She was so far from black, that the red colour was very 
 apparent in her cheek. She sat before me in a corner of the group, 
 nearly in the attitude of Mr. Bailey's fine statue of Eve at the 
 Fountain ; and apparently equally unconscious that she was 
 naked." An old man civilly offered to barter her for a tomahawk to 
 the evidently admiring soldier. His refusal was doubtless regarded 
 as more foolish than scrupulous. 
 
 The English were amused with the Painted Tribe, the men of 
 which accurately marked out the muscles of their bodies with the
 
 31 
 
 help of the pipe-clay. Speaking of an Australian Barrington, the 
 traveller writes : " His hands were ready to seize any living thing ; 
 his step, light and noiseless as that of a shadow, gave no intention 
 of his approach." Some of these folks believed that the clothes 
 of the Europeans made them proof against attack by the spear. 
 When near Mount William, our countrymen were agreeably sur- 
 prised to meet with a Blackfellow who could say the word " milk," 
 and had been in Whitefellows' company before. Upon the banks 
 of the Glenelg, Mitchell fell in with a lubra and her child. The 
 little fellow was being carried on her back between a kangaroo rug 
 and a circular mat covering. He is thus described : " His plea- 
 sant and youthful face, he being a very fine specimen of the native 
 race, presented a striking contrast to the miserable looks of his 
 whining mother." The manner in which the explorers warded off 
 an impending attack, was effectual as novel. The natives had been 
 thronging them for some time ; and with all their assumed candour 
 and indifference, Piper discovered that they contemplated a night 
 onslaught upon the trespassers on their hunting grounds. Their 
 thirst for blood was allayed by a capital manoeuvre of the Old 
 Peninsular Warrior. When quite dark, " at a given signal, Burnett 
 suddenly sallied forth, wearing a gilt mask, and holding in his 
 hand a blue light, with which he fixed a rocket. Two men, con- 
 cealed behind the boat carriage, bellowed hideously through speak- 
 ing trumpets, while all the others shouted and discharged their 
 carbines in the air. Burnett marched solemnly toward the 
 astonished natives, who were seen through the gloom but for an 
 instant, as they made their escape, and disappeared for ever." 
 
 THE ASSOCIATION AND THE BLACKS. 
 We must refer the reader to th " Discovery and Settlement of 
 Port Phillip " for particulars of the Association of certain respect- 
 able Tasmanian Colonists in 1835, under the management of Mr. 
 John Batman, whose object was the Settlement of this colony. 
 Their intention is thus set forth by Major Mercer, one of the com- 
 pany; " The formation of a nucleus of a free and useful colony, 
 founded upon principles of conciliation and civilization, of philanth-
 
 32 
 
 ropy, morality and temperance, without danger of its ever becoming- 
 onerous to the mother country, and calculated to ensure the well- 
 being and comfort of the natives." If not settled by a confedera- 
 tion of humane and intelligent persons, he predicted that " The 
 country would be, if ever, occupied hereafter by the extermination 
 of the Aboriginal inhabitants alone." 
 
 For this purpose, Mr. Batman was sent over to conciliate the 
 good feelings of the Aborigines by presents and fair treaty ; as he 
 stated in his letter from Launceston to Governor Arthur, " By 
 obtaining from them a grant of a portion of that territory, on 
 equitable principles, not only might the sources of this colony be 
 considerably extended, but the object of civilization be established ; 
 and which in process of time would lead to the civilization of a 
 large portion of the Aborigines." Additional evidence of this 
 worthy spirit is seen in the following document. 
 
 " Memorandum for Mr. Batman's Guidance about the Natives. 
 
 "The first point to be attended to, is to keep up a friendly 
 feeling on their part to the establishment, and to ensure on 
 their part a feeling of confidence, and the next is to make them 
 as useful to the Association as possible. Much may be done 
 by the force of example through the Sydney natives. It will 
 be desirable to have two scales of rations : one for them who 
 will make themselves useful, and a less scale for those who 
 will not. That civilization will best proceed by dividing the 
 natives into families, and employing six or eight at each of the 
 stations, if they can be induced voluntarily to do so ; but it 
 must not be done by compulsion. Habits of labour will only 
 be acquired by degrees ; and if each party were allowed to 
 have a small piece of ground to cultivate for themselves, it 
 would materially assist. 
 
 " It will be very expedient to appoint Buckley superintendent 
 of the natives, for he will be enabled under Mr. Batman's 
 directions to keep them in proper order, and to make them 
 understand the advantages they will receive in pursuing this 
 plan, and so soon as this is accomplished they will become 
 useful servants of the institution.
 
 33 
 
 M Some regard ought to be had to the amount of tribute pay- 
 able, and that for the excess some equivalent in labour given, 
 but it will not be desirable in the first instance to coerce the 
 natives to labor. 
 
 " It may be questionable whether it will be prudent to give 
 the natives mutton, otherwise the flocks may and most probably 
 will hereafter suffer; if they required animal food it will be 
 better to supply them with salt pork. 
 
 " Signed J. T. GELLIBRAND 
 for C. SWANSTON. 
 
 J. T. GELLIBRAND. 
 JNO. H. WEDGE. 
 W. G. SAMS. 
 ANTHY. COTTRELL. 
 M. CONNELLY. 
 " October 22, 1835." 
 
 In a letter of Batman's to Governor Arthur, dated October 
 23, 1835, we have the following reference to the natives : " I 
 have the honor of reporting the progress made by the Associa- 
 tion since July last with the native tribes. From that period 
 up to the commencement of this month, when Mr. Wedge left 
 Port Phillip, the intercourse has been kept up upon the most 
 friendly terms, and from eighty to one hundred natives have 
 been clothed and supplied with daily rations at the expense of 
 the Association. The natives have been partially occupied in 
 habits of industry, and I have not the least hesitation in 
 affirming, that if no unforeseen obstacles occur, a gradual system 
 of civilization will obtain." 
 
 The Association provided suitable married and well conducted 
 servants for their stations in Port Phillip, organised a system of 
 protection for the natives, and appointed a gentleman, Dr. Thomson 
 of Geelong, as surgeon and catechist. But after contesting with 
 Government for some time, the authorities would not sanction their 
 purchase from the Aborigines, and the company ceased to exist. 
 Yet the influence of their judicious and Christian policy remained 
 long afterwards, and gave a tone to the treatment of the inhabitants
 
 31 
 
 They never suffered like the poor Tasmanians. Whatever they 
 endured from certain brutal stockkeepers, the Squatters, as a class, 
 had respect to their claims, and treated them with humanity and 
 kindness. 
 
 MB. BATMAN AND THE BLACKS. 
 
 This interesting Founder of the Colony of Port Phillip was a 
 devoted friend to the dark skinned man. He was warmly attached 
 to the persecuted Tasmanians ; and he evidenced his honest regard 
 to the interests of our aborigines, by the honorable treaty he sought 
 to make with them, which is described at length in the other work 
 on the Colony. When he arrived as a settler with his family, there 
 were always many natives to be seen lounging about Batman's Hill. 
 The visitors by the Rattlesnake, in June, 1836, were much amused 
 by the Soyer demonstration which the kind-hearted Batman had 
 prepared for his black friends. There was a large boiler outside, 
 full of rice, and into which dark masses of sugar were tumbled, 
 with the stirring. Then came a man with a shovel, and scooped 
 up a ration for each expectant one. Loud laughter accompanied 
 the process, and gratified merriment aided digestion. It so hap- 
 pened at one of these reunions, that something was missing, a 
 most unusual circumstance. Sending for his telescope, Mr. Batman 
 slowly walked round the group, looking to discover the offender. 
 The excitement and perturbation of the thief at this novel and 
 certain mode of detection revealed his guilt. 
 
 Our Founder first came in contact with the Port Phillip Blacks 
 on Sunday, May 31st, 1835, on the western shore of the Bay. 
 Having with him some civilized Sydney natives, he sent them 
 onward, a-head, to a camp of twenty women and twenty-four child- 
 ren, who were comforting themselves over fires in the absence of 
 their hunting lords. Mr. Batman has the following notices of them 
 in his journal. " They seemed quite pleased with my natives who 
 could partially understand them ; they sang and danced for them." 
 " Every woman had a child at her back but one, who was quite 
 young, and very good looking." Each of these ladies had a burden 
 to carry of some sixty pounds weight in their nets, consisting of
 
 35 
 
 roots, bones, nuts, tomahawks, &c. One had a part of a wheel 
 spoke ; and another, an iron hoop. The account is thus continued : 
 " They came back with us where I had some blankets, looking 
 glasses, beads, handkerchiefs, and apples. I gave them eight pairs 
 of blankets, thirty handkerchiefs, eighteen necklaces of beads, six 
 pounds of sugar, twelve looking glasses, and a quantity of apples, 
 which they seemed much pleased with." Then follows a notice of 
 the fair one : " The young woman whom I have spoken of before, 
 gave me a very handsome basket of her own make." A notice of 
 the younger folks follows : " The children were very good looking, 
 and of a healthy appearance." 
 
 One week after, he fell in with a friendly chief and his family 
 near the Merri Creek, who introduced him to the rest of his tribe, 
 the Jagga Jagga. There were three noble brothers of that name, 
 who ever afterward became the sincere and devoted followers of Mr. 
 Batman. It was with these that he entered into his famous treaty. 
 The William Penn of Port Phillip closes his account of that 
 week with the Aborigines, with these words : " They certainly 
 appear to me to be of a superior race of natives which I have 
 ever seen." 
 
 MR. WEDGE AND THE BLACKS IN 1835. 
 
 We have been favoured with a manuscript notice of our Port 
 Phillip natives, from John Helder Wedge, Esq., M.L.C., of Tas- 
 mania, and then one of the Port Phillip Association. This is the 
 record of his visit to the Blacks Friends of the Wild White Man. 
 
 " On landing at Port Phillip on the 7th August, 1835, at the 
 encampment of the party, three white men and some Sydney 
 natives left for the purpose of maintaining the friendly intercourse 
 which had been established with the aborigines of that part of New 
 Holland, I lound seven families of the natives residing in their 
 huts around the entrapment. The greater part of them were 
 absent at the time on a hunting excursion, but a boy came down 
 with the white men to welcome us on our arrival. An old man 
 (Pewitt) and his two wives, were at the huts, together with some 
 young girls who had been promised in marriage to the Sydney
 
 36 
 
 natives left by Mr. Batman. I soon learnt that the most friendly 
 understanding existed with the natives ; indeed I scarcely needed 
 this information, for it was evident from the light hearted playful- 
 ness of the boy, the cheerfulness of the old man, and the vivacious 
 loquacity of the females, who came and shook hands with me on my 
 arrival. They were evidently anxious to inform me by signs that 
 the families who inhabited the several huts were out hunting and 
 that they would come home in the evening. On the return of the 
 various families with the game which they had obtained during the 
 day, the members severally welcomed me by a shake of the hand. 
 The only married female of our party (Mrs. H. Batman) and her 
 four little daughters, with whom the natives were much delighted, 
 particularly attracted their attention. Although they brought home 
 with them plenty of provisions consisting of various edible roots, 
 kangaroo-rats and calkiel (the young ants in a fly state taken from 
 decayed hollow trees) they soon began to importune us for bread 
 and other things, not excepting the cutlery. From this I inferred 
 at once that, to satisfy their newly acquired appetite for our food 
 and other things which we brought with us, such as knives, toma- 
 hawks, and blankets, was a sure way of conciliating them. 
 
 "In this conclusion at which I thus arrived, I was fully confirmed 
 by Buckley, who on every occasion evinced the greatest desire to 
 be of use, whenever he had it in his power to do so, and who gave 
 me a general outline of the character of the different natives as 
 they arrived, one of whom (Murradonnanuke) he pointed out as 
 being more to be dreaded on account of his treachery, than any of 
 the other chiefs ; as one of the main objects I had in view, besides 
 examining the country was to make myself acquainted with the 
 habits and dispositions of the natives, I devoted the first few days 
 after ray arrival to studying their characters. For this purpose I 
 went out hunting with them daily, and spent the greater part of 
 my time among them, I soon satisfied myself that by a little tact 
 and management there was no danger to be apprehended from them, 
 although I learnt from Buckley that in the treatment of each other 
 they were treacherous. To command their respect, I found it was 
 necessary to make them fully understand that it was in our power, 
 not only to minister to their wants and comforts, but amply to avenge
 
 37 
 
 any outrage. In impressing them with this idea Buckley was of 
 great use to me, by making known to them the ample means we had 
 of furnishing them with food, blankets, &c. ; and explaining the 
 object which we had in view in settling amongst them, and our 
 desire to be on friendly terms with them, which was mainly com- 
 passed by evincing a confidence devoid of fear in our deportment 
 towards them, and by abstaining from any act which might lead 
 them to doubt the sincerity of our intentions. I learnt from 
 Buckley that they were cannibals. His statement on this head was 
 confirmed by the two youths who attached themselves to me during 
 my stay in New Holland, and who accompanied me on several 
 excursions I made into the interior; but they do not seem to indulge 
 in this horrible propensity, except when the tribes are at war with 
 each other, when the bodies of those who are killed are roasted, 
 and their bones are infallibly picked by the teeth of their enemy. 
 Of this custom they make no secret, and on being questioned speak 
 of it as a matter of course, and describe the mode of preparing 
 their victim for the repast. Disgusting as is this practice, (the 
 process of which is too revolting to commit to paper,) a still more 
 horrible one if possible prevails that of destroying their infant at 
 its birth. The cause by which they appear to be influenced, is the 
 custom they have of nursing their children till they are three or 
 four years old. To get rid therefore of the trouble and inconveni- 
 ence of finding sustenance for two, should the second be born before 
 the eldest is weaned, they destroy the youngest immediately after 
 it is born. Although this explanation was given me by Buckley, 
 and I have no doubt this is in most instances the cause, yet some 
 women perpetrate the murder of their infants from mere wanton- 
 ness, and as it would seem to us, a total absence of that maternal 
 feeling, which is found even in the brute creation. One woman in 
 particular (the wife I think of Mullamboid) was pointed out to me, 
 who had destroyed ten out of eleven of her children, one of whom 
 she killed a few days previous to my arrival at the Port. Notwith- 
 standing the increase of the tribes is thus kept down, Polygamy is 
 common amongst them, few of the men have less than two wives 
 and some of them four or five. The women, as is the case with 
 most savages, are quite subservient to the mm, and arc kept in 
 
 D
 
 38 
 
 excellent discipline ; chastisement quickly follows the least offence, 
 and a fire stick is not unfrequently the instrument of correction. 
 The wealth of the men may be said to consist in the number of 
 their wives, for their chief employment is in procuring food for 
 their lords. On one occasion I was witness to a scene that afforded 
 me some amusement, although it was no fun to the poor women 
 concerned. My attention was attracted by the outcry of the 
 women who were receiving chastisement from their husband 
 (Murradonnanuke) who was punishing them by throwing fire sticks 
 at them in the most furious manner. On enquiry, I learnt that 
 the cause of offence arose from the poor creatures not having 
 brought home that evening a quantity of provisions sufficient to 
 satisfy his insatiable appetite. In the regulations which prevail 
 respecting their wives, they have one which seems to have some- 
 connection with, or similar to the Mosaic law. On the death of the 
 husband his wives became the property of the eldest of his brothers 
 or his next of kin. The men are jealous of their wives, and should 
 any intrigue be discovered it would probably lead to the death of 
 one or both of the offending parties ; although, if the husband 
 receives what he considers to be an adequate compensation., he is 
 accommodating to his friend. I do not believe infidelity is frequent 
 among the women, unless sanctioned by the husband. During the 
 whole time I was among them, I never observed any advances or 
 levity of conduct on their part, although it is not at all improbable 
 that they are restrained by fear of consequences should they be 
 detected. In bestowing daughters for wives, they are frequently 
 promised as soon as they are born, and on these occasions the 
 parents receive presents of food, opossum and kangaroo rugs, clubs, 
 spears, &c., from the person to whom she is betrothed, and this 
 arrangement is considered to be binding, although it sometimes 
 happens that these promises are broken by the parents, especially 
 when the man who has received the promise belongs to another and 
 distant tribe. When this occurs, it creates a feeling of enmity 
 and it is not unfrequently taken up by the whole tribe, who make 
 common cause with the aggrieved party. If they once determine 
 on being revenged, they never lose sight of their object till they 
 have satisfied themselves by a general conflict with the tribe to
 
 39 
 
 whom the offending party belongs, or it sometimes happens that 
 the poor girl and her husband are singled out, and in the dead of 
 the night the spear gives both a passport to the land whose 
 inhabitants live without hunting. The men are prohibited from 
 looking at the mother of the girls promised them in marriage. 
 This singular custom is observed with the strictest caution. On 
 passing the hut of the mother-in-law, or any place where they 
 suppose her to be, they carefully turn their head away, and evince 
 great concern if by any chance they should see her, although I am 
 not aware of any penalty being attached to the offence save that of 
 displeasing the parents. On meeting with Nullaboin and his 
 family, I took notice that a young girl just married carefully 
 avoided looking at a particular man, for what reason I cannot 
 divine, unless it was that the old man had been promised her first 
 daughter. 
 
 " From enquiries which I made on the subject, I am induced to 
 believe that a feeling of enmity does not permanently exist among 
 the tribes, as it is terminated by a general battle royal, something 
 after the style of an Irish fair. A short time previous to my 
 departure a few men with their wives, from an adjoining tribe, came 
 to that amongst whom I was living, with an invitation to join them 
 iu a conflict which they meditated with an adjoining tribe. They 
 sent two or three young men to a tribe to the westward, inviting 
 them also to join them on this occasion. I learnt that this hostile 
 feeling had been created by a man having lost one of his eyes in a 
 scuffle with a man belonging to the Western Port tribe. This 
 accident happened about eight months previously, and although the 
 party who now sought to avenge himself was the aggressor, having 
 wounded his antagonist with a spear, he nevertheless determined on 
 having satisfaction, and had succeeded in inducing his own tribe 
 and that with which I was living, and probably would influence the 
 other also, to whom an embassy of young men had been despatched 
 to the westward, to espouse the cause of his odd eye. They also 
 gave an invitation to the seven Sydney natives to join them with 
 their guns. This of course I discouraged, and I was not without 
 hopes that they might be induced through the influence of Bucklejr 
 to forego their intention of taking their revenge, although from
 
 40 
 
 what he said, I concluded there was not much chance of such a 
 result. Buckley said that the time of their meeting was very un- 
 certain, that it might happen in a week or two, or it might be put 
 off some months, but that the collision was almost certain to take 
 place sooner or later. In these conflicts it does not often happen 
 that many lives are lost, seldom more than one or two ; frequently 
 all return from the place alive and no other mischief done than an 
 eye less, a head broken, or an impression made upon their coatless 
 backs by a club or spear ; so expert are they in avoiding the missiles 
 of their opponents. All feeling of hostility ceases with the battle, 
 and cordiality again prevails, till it is interrupted by the impulse of 
 their feeling which is extremely sensitive ; in fact they are nearly 
 as pugnacious as though their birth-place has been the Green Island. 
 Like all others uncivilized and in a state of nature, they are 
 astonishingly dexterous in the use of their weapons, employed by 
 them in the defence of their persons, and in procuring food ; and 
 in tracking each other, as well as kangaroos and other animals 
 they are very expert. The most trifling disarrangement of the 
 grass, a broken twig, or the slightest thing which indicates the 
 direction of the object of pursuit is at once perceived by them, and 
 they follow the track with ease at a brisk pace. On several occa- 
 sions I witnessed their adroitness in this respect. In fact, their 
 perceptions in seeing, hearing and smelling are surprisingly acute, 
 and in the pursuit of their game they evince the patient persever- 
 ance so peculiar to man living in a state of nature. Their food 
 consists principally of kangaroo and other animals, fish and roots 
 of various sorts ; black swans, ducks, and many other birds ; in 
 fact there is scarcely any animal or bird which comes amiss to them, 
 and many reptiles : amongst others a species of snake comes within 
 their bill of fare. In their appetites they are quite ravenous, and 
 the quantity they devour at one meal would astonish even a London 
 alderman, although they are not quite so fastidious in the quality of 
 their viands. 
 
 " I could not learn that they have any religious observances, and 
 indeed from the information gathered from Buckley, I am led to 
 believe they have no idea whatever of a Supreme Being, although it 
 is somewhat difficult to reconcile the fact of their believing in a
 
 41 
 
 future state, for they certainly entertain the idea that, after death, 
 they again exist, being transformed into white men. This is 
 obviously a new idea, since they have been acquainted with us, and 
 is an evidence that the friendly intercourse we have established with 
 them, will by degrees operate upon their minds, and gradually work 
 an amelioration of their condition. Of this being ultimately 
 affected I entertain very sanguine expectations, and I think I am 
 warranted in doing so, by the result of the experiments I made to 
 induce them to habits of industry whilst residing amongst them. 
 The men on several occasions rendered assistance in carrying sod 
 for the erection of our huts, and many of the women were almost 
 constantly employed in making baskets, during the last week or 
 ten days previous to my departure. In re-payment for these and 
 other services, bread was given them on the completion of their 
 tasks, with which they were well satisfied, and I have little doubt 
 if proper arrangements were made, and attention paid, that great 
 progress might be made in a short time towards establishing more 
 civilized habits. Their whole time may be said to be devoted to 
 procuring food during the day. All their thoughts seem to be 
 directed towards ministering to their appetites. The women are 
 the drudges of their husbands, and are seldom idle during the day, 
 being for the most part employed either in getting the various 
 edible roots with which the country abounds, or in making baskets 
 and nets, and any other occupations directed by their husbands. 
 Their habitations are of the most rude and simple construction, the 
 materials of which they are made being the branches of trees laid 
 with tolerable compactness, and pitched at an angle of about 45 
 degrees. In shape they form a segment of a circle, and their size 
 is in proportion to the number of inmates of which the family is 
 composed." 
 
 THE FIRST OVERLANDER AND THE BLACKS. 
 
 Mr. John Gardiner came overland from Sydney at the latter end 
 of 1835. In giving us the narrative of that cattle driving trip, he 
 said that only upon one occasion did he fall in with any natives, and
 
 42 
 
 that was upon the Dividing Range, somewhere in the Kilmore dis- 
 trict. He was then saluted by a black with the cry of " Batman !" 
 accompanied with the usual glucking sound of astonishment. His 
 lubra was a tall noble looking woman, with very handsome features, 
 and an olive complexion. The travellers immediately set her down 
 for a daughter of the gigantic Wild White Man, Buckley. Their 
 native Stock-keeper from Sydney fell desperately in love with 
 the lady, and would have her on any terms. He very seriously 
 deliberated upon the best means of rendering her a widow, that he 
 might become her protector. 
 
 The Quaker Missionary, James Backhouse, tells the following 
 singular story respecting this Overlander, which he heard from that 
 gentleman, on the Yarra, in 1837. " In one of J. Gardiner's 
 journies from Sydney, one of his men was bitten by a venomous 
 serpent. The wound was sucked, but the man showed symptoms 
 of faintness of alarming character. The party had received inti- 
 mation from a native woman, that some of her countrymen intended 
 to attack them in the night ; and at the juncture, when the poison 
 seemed to be taking effect, the lights of the natives were seen 
 approaching. The party were thrown into a state of alarm ; they 
 watched a favourable opportunity, seized the blacks at unawares, 
 and expostulated with them against making such an attack upon 
 persons in no way disposed to injure them. The chief was detained 
 as a hostage, and placed under the charge of one of the party, who, 
 being overcome by fatigue, fell asleep, and his captive escaped, but 
 returned no more to annoy them. These circumstances diverted 
 the attention of the company from the envenomed man, and his 
 case was forgotten until the next morning, when he was enquired of 
 respecting his welfare. He also had forgotten his malady ; fear 
 seems to have suspended the effect of the poison, and he said he 
 felt no more of it from the time the lights of the Blacks appeared. 
 
 COUNT STRZELECKI AND THE GIPPS LAND BLACKS, 
 
 This kind hearted, scientific Polish noble wrote an interesting 
 work upon Australia some fourteen years ago. When descending 
 from our Alps into the country he called Gipps Land, .his party
 
 43 
 
 came upon a large encampment of the wild natives. Having been 
 for several days on short allowance for water, the Europeans rushed 
 hastily toward a pool. They were instantly withheld by their own 
 aboriginal guide, who represented their conduct as indecorous, im- 
 politic, and dangerous. They were on the lands of strangers, and 
 had no legal right to fire or water. At his direction, therefore, they 
 sat down quietly upon the grass. A quarter of au hour had elapsed, 
 when one of the Gipps Landers came across, and politely handed 
 them a piece of burning wood. With this a fire was kindled, and 
 an opossum cooked for supper. But it was drink they were so 
 anxious to obtain. Yet among these wild children of nature, there 
 were set conventional forms of society, as binding and exactive as 
 those of refined circles, and the infringement of which perilled the 
 social position of the offender. It was contrary to aboriginal 
 etiquette to ask for water ; the guide then began gnawing at a stick, 
 all the while casting side long, wistful glances at the pool. The 
 look was sufficiently suggestive, and a calabash of water was gene- 
 rously brought to them. 
 
 They now prepared for sleep. When the gentlemen at home 
 witnessed these final camping preparations, they sent an old man to 
 confer with our party. The guide met him. A long yabber ensued. 
 Questions were asked about the white men, why they came, and 
 where they were going. The envoy returned to his tribe, and was 
 heard in shrill accents loudly repeating the nature of the conference. 
 Silence followed this communication ; after which the tribe came to 
 a decision. The old man appeared with the ultimatum. The white 
 men were instantly to depart. Knowing that appeal would be 
 useless, they gathered up their knapsacks and went on their way. 
 Trespassers were not allowed ; but instead of steel traps and spring 
 guns, they were first tendered the rights of hospitality, and suffered 
 to recruit their physical systems, before ordered to withdraw. It 
 has not been quite in that courteous style that we have driven the 
 owners of the soil from our homesteads, or the Chinese from our 
 shores.
 
 44 
 
 MR. MCMILLAN AND THE WILD GIPPS LAND NATIVES. 
 
 Though Count Strzelecki was the first who traversed the Snowy 
 Alpine country between Sydney and Melbourne, ascended Mount 
 Kosciusko, and named a province after Governor Gipps, yet Mr. 
 McMillan has undoubtedly the priority of discovery of that very 
 interesting country. Having been specially furnished by that 
 gentleman with an account of his expedition in 1840, we extract 
 such portions for the present work as relate to the Aborigines. We 
 have introduced to us an account of his Maneroo native guide 
 Jemmy, and his fears of the formidable Gipps Landers. 
 
 " Jemmy Gibber was getting fearfully alarmed of meeting with a 
 wild tribe of Blacks called Warrigals, inhabiting that part of the 
 country, and consequently refused to proceed any further with me, 
 making an attempt to get away from me. I was then in a wild 
 mountainous country, covered principally with scrub, and my com- 
 panion gave me to understand that he was ignorant of our where- 
 abouts, and that I must trust to my tinder box (a name he gave to 
 my pocket compass). I got him to go on with me until the eve- 
 ning, when we camped and lighted our fire, and after taking refresh- 
 ment laid down to rest. I nearly paid dearly this night for my 
 confidence in my companion. After being sometime asleep I awoke 
 suddenly, and to my consternation found Jemmy Gibber standing 
 over me with his upraised wad-!y or club, one blow of which would 
 have settled me. I at once presented my pistol at him, when he 
 at once cried out, begging me not to shoot him, that he had been 
 dreaming that another black fellow had been taking away his wife 
 and that he did not want to kill me ; but it was evident to me his 
 intention was to take my life, that he might then return home." 
 
 He then shows us these ugly strangers : 
 
 " This was the first day on which I met any of the Black Tribes 
 or Wild Blacks. On meeting us they approached close up to us, 
 and stood looking at us until I dismounted, when they commenced 
 yelling, and instantly took to their heels. It is my belief they took 
 the horse and rider to be one until I dismounted, having never seen 
 a white man or a horse before."
 
 45 
 
 Again we read : " About these morasses to the north-east of 
 the River Latrobe, we saw some hundreds of the natives who, on 
 our approach, burned their camp and betook themselves to the 
 scrub ; we, however, managed to overtake an old man that could 
 not walk fast ; to him I gave a knife and a pair of trowsers, and 
 endeavoured by all means in my power to open a communication 
 with the Blacks through him, but they would not come near us. 
 It was amusing to see the old man after shaking hands with all 
 the party, walking up to the horses and shaking each of them by 
 the bridle, thinking the same form necessary to be gone through 
 with them as with us. The only ornaments he had about him 
 were human hands, either men's or women's, beautifully preserved, 
 suspended from his neck." 
 
 " On my way back from the station, I was informed that ray 
 party had been driven out of the New Country by the Wild Blacks, 
 which I found to be too true. Mr. McAlister whom I had left 
 in charge of the party had a very narrow escape, six of the Blacks 
 attacked him at once and deprived him of his gun. They were 
 obliged to give way to the Blacks, who pursued them for twenty-five 
 miles." The sequel of the story is, that, accompanied by six others, 
 he had a desperate skirmish with the natives in November, 1840. 
 Poor Mr. McAlister was killed in a conflict in 1841. Even after the 
 settlement was formed at Port Albert, it was long before one could 
 stir a mile from the Port without being well armed. 
 
 Mr. Mclntyre gave us a description of the Wild Gipps Landers' 
 visit to the out station of Mr. Jamieson, Western Port. When they 
 burst in upon the Whites, they were evidently not up in a knowledge 
 of our domestic life. They broke open the store for acquisitive 
 reasons. The sugar and tea were emptied upon the earth as useless. 
 The dairy afforded rare fun. They knew not what to make of the 
 milk ; so they poured that away. But the bright milk dishes took 
 their fancy amazingly. Throwing them up in the air, they laughed 
 immoderately at their shining, and their brilliant glitter in the sun- 
 shine. The blankets only were appropriated and taken. No harm 
 was done to any one. The Wild Men then retired to their mountain 
 home.
 
 46 
 
 THE WILD BLACKS OF LAKE HINDMARSH. 
 
 Mr. Protector Robinson first came in contact with these strange 
 Blackfellows, whom he thus describes : " The Aborigines were at 
 the lake, and a frail canoe, for the purpose I presume of floating over 
 the soft, and, in some places, deep mud, was on shore. 
 
 "The natives as we approached fled and hid themselves among the 
 reeds or behind the trees. My native interpreter told them who I 
 was, when they timidly came forth, and trembling stood before us. 
 They were informed that White men would occupy their country 
 and treat them kindly. They appeared greatly alarmed at the 
 horses, and (except a young female adorned with emu feathers) 
 were naked. I understood we were the first Whites they had 
 personal communication with. Their dietary consisted of frogs, 
 shrimps, grubs and roots ; the latter, cooked on heated stones and 
 hot ashes. A fruit with an orbicular rough stone was observed. 
 A large and well constructed native habitation shaped in the form 
 of a span roof, thatched with reeds, pleasantly situated on the verge 
 of a pond, was quite unique and highly creditable to the skill and 
 industry of the native artizans. On the Murray they exhume their 
 dead. A tumulus on elevated ground, encircled by a neat parterre, 
 had been recently formed, indicated by the embers of the watch 
 fire, and the green boughs on the top of the mound."
 
 47 
 
 PHYSICAL APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER OF THE 
 PORT PHILLIP BLACKS. 
 
 As a people, the Port Phillip natives are very unlike the absurd 
 caricature of D'Urville's, seen in Pritchard's History of Man. 
 The men are usually robust, with well proportioned limbs, not 
 unpleasing countenances, and a head little inferior to that of the 
 proud Caucasian. The forehead is massive and perpendicular. 
 The development of the perceptive faculties corresponds to their 
 extraordinary power of sight, and mechanical ingenuity and 
 dexterity. Though not students of Euclid, Locke or Herschel, 
 they exhibit in their own way a practical sense of reasoning and 
 propriety of judgment, as led Sir T. Mitchell to say, " They are as 
 apt and intelligent as any other race of men I am acquainted with." 
 Mr. Westgarth exclaims, " The untutored savage shines with a 
 lustre of his own, which appears so much superior, as in others it 
 is manifestly inferior in comparison with civilized man." It is 
 scarcely fair to judge of their intelligence by ours, the offspring of 
 centuries of civilizing processes. Mr. Ex-Protector Parker assures 
 us, "They are just as capable of receiving instruction, just as 
 capable of mental exercises as any more favoured race." Arch- 
 bishop Folding says, " I have no reason to think them much lower 
 than ourselves in many respects." 
 
 Their eyes are large, brilliant, vivacious and expressive. Their 
 noses are broad, their teeth are powerful and white, their mouths 
 are wide, and their hair is dark, glossy and curly. Many men 
 have beards of long and shining curls that would excite the envy 
 of a Pasha. When an aboriginal young man is adorned for a 
 corrobory, with his hair parted, greased and curled ; his sinewy 
 and finely chiselled limbs, untrammelled with dress ; his noble bust, 
 artistically decorated with ochre by a favorite lady ; and his joyous 
 face beaming with exuberant good humour, he presents a far more 
 pleasing object to the lover of natural grace, than the bejewelled, 
 scented, patent booted, smirking fop of Regent Street. The skiu 
 is not black, but of a dark copper cast. The use of grease, charcoal 
 and ochre, however beneficial in resisting the rays of the sun, 
 obscures their color. Cicatrices, or raised scars across their chests,
 
 48 
 
 supply as ornament the tatoo of the ancient English, or modern 
 New Zealander. Their habits may appear disgusting sometimes 
 from our ignorance of their object. Their sense of decency is 
 observed according to the Mosaic ritual, Deut. 23c 12 13v. The 
 majestic step of our savage, his erect posture, the ease with which 
 he comports himself in the presence of our colonial grandees, his 
 independence, nay, his haughtiness of demeanour, with that serene, 
 confident and cold glance of the eye, all indicate a life of freedom 
 in his wilds, without the tyranny of irresponsible chieftainship, 
 and the thraldom of a legal code. 
 
 Their character is indeed made up of incongruities apparently 
 irreconcilable. We agree with Mr. Eyre, the distinguished 
 traveller, that good temper naturally characterizes them ; but, 
 then, they are sometimes under the influence of a satanic fury. 
 Affectionate and grateful, they can be remorselessly cruel and 
 vindictively treacherous. Their transitions are rapid ; now, tranquil 
 and soft as an Australian morn, and again, violent and destructive 
 as the stormy typhoon. The disciples of Rousseau behold them 
 virtuous, gentle, good ; Mr. Dredge calls them " extremely wicked 
 and degraded." Bad as they were, however, their Christian visitors 
 have taught them the moral vices of swearing and drunkenness. 
 Their is no want of natural affection and delicacy of feeling. A 
 Murray Black was observed rubbing up an old pannican which 
 had belonged to his deceased wife. Being asked what he was 
 going to do with it, he mentioned his intention to carry it to 
 her brother at Moorunde ; adding, " Then him plenty cry." They 
 are truly a happy, merry community. Their camp is a very home 
 of buffoonery and laughter. Without the conventional decorum 
 and restraint of our civilized society, without our jealousy of 
 vanity and punctilious observances, they gambol with the freedom 
 of roistering children. Such an idea as suicide never comes into 
 their minds ; they have no bills to meet, and no position to sustain. 
 The condition of the old men in a tribe is honourable, gratifying, 
 and fattening ; their counsels are treated with respect, they marry 
 the young wives, and they may eat what they please.
 
 49 
 
 CLOTHING, ORNAMENTS AND TENEMENTS. 
 
 Generally speaking the Australian aborigines prefer the absence 
 of dress. In cold weather, the opossum or kangaroo skin rug, 
 neatly sewed with sinews or a kind of grass, is thrown around 
 their persons. The substitution of this by the lazy blanket is 
 no improvement. On the sea coast garments have been worked out 
 of rushes and seaweed. Their ornaments are simple, and not so 
 regarded as among other people. There is rather an indifference 
 than otherwise to indulgence in finery ; though it may arise from 
 public opinion, and the fear of ridicule. The feathers of the 
 swan, emu, cockatoo, &c., adorn them on grand occasions ; when 
 the hair is sometimes studded with the teeth of kangaroos and 
 claws of birds, as among the American Indians, with strings of 
 pieces of small reed around their necks. The women are 
 deemed sufficiently beautiful without such silly appendages ; 
 they have no auxiliaries to their native charms. The men even 
 appropriate to themselves alone the curl and ochre band ; though 
 both sexes have cicatrices or raised scars, the ladies' backs being 
 thus adorned. The Mosaical injunctions " Nor print any mark 
 upon you ; I am the Lord," scarcely applies to our natives. 
 The Tattoo belongs to the New Zealander. 
 
 Their dwellings are not substantial. Continually roving about in 
 search for food, they cannot trouble about such erections ; and, 
 generally, in so fine a climate as this, they have little require- 
 ment for them. A few sticks and boughs ; some branches against 
 a fallen tree ; or the breakwind of an opossum rug, is about 
 all they desire. Sometimes the wirlie is framed of reeds or sticks, 
 and covered with boughs, bark, grass, rags, or old clothes ; it is 
 occasionally made to turn round, so as to suit the change of wind. 
 Where food is plentiful, the huts are better built. Mr. Protector 
 Robinson, on his first visit to the wild tribes of Lake Hindmarsh 
 found some of this character, which he thus describes ; " large 
 and well constructed habitations shaped in the form of a span 
 roof, thatched with reeds, pleasantly situated on the verge of a 
 pond, was quite unique, and highly creditable to the skill and 
 industry of the native artizans." When near Mount Napier he
 
 50 
 
 came upon 13 large huts of wood covered with turf. Trenches 
 
 500 yards long led to extensive intercourses. "The whole," 
 
 says he, " covered an area of about ten acres, and must have been 
 done at great cost of labor to the aborigines." 
 
 FOOD AND COOKING. 
 
 There was no want of adequate nutrition for our natives before the 
 advent of the whites ; and even now, especially with their dimi- 
 nished numbers, there is enough and to spare. In some districts 
 certain descriptions of food are now scarce, and invasion of the 
 hunting grounds of another tribe is a cause of strife. The animal 
 world, roots, seeds, and fruits, are indifferently taken. But they 
 had certain strict regulations about these. Thus, children may eat 
 anything before they are ten years of age. Then, boys may not eat 
 the Kangaroo, nor the female and young of any kind. Young females 
 are not to partake of the Crane, Bandicoot, male Wallaby, and 
 Native Companion. Young men are prohibited Black Ducks, Cranes, 
 Eagles, Snakes, Wallabies and the young from the pouch ; the se- 
 niors tell them that if they do eat of these, sores will break out all 
 over their bodies. Married men till forty years old must not taste 
 the Crane, Eagle and Native Companion. The adult female may 
 not eat of the male Opossum, Wallaby, Red Kangaroo and Snakes. 
 No females are to eat of fish caught under the cliffs to which they 
 retire to spawn. Women in a certain state have to consume more 
 vegetables. The old folks eat what they like. These rules have 
 lapsed since the Aborigines' decline and change of habits. 
 
 They were not wanting in dainties, besides ducks and geese. 
 There were delicious sausages of fat, placed in the entrails of the 
 pelican, which were passed round the circle for individual sucking. 
 The Loap, or Manna, causes quite a festival in its season. The 
 favourite Myrnong root, of a radish character, has been much 
 destroyed by our sheep. The Karko stick with a hook fished up the 
 luscious grubs from their wooden caverns. A whale cast upon the 
 shore was a thorough Lord Mayor's feast. Neighbouring tribes 
 would make friendly overtures, and there would be nothing but cut 
 and come again. Capt. Lyons tells us that he gave an Esquimaux
 
 51 
 
 40 Ibs. of seal's flesh for a day's feed ; we do not think that an 
 Australian's appetite is quite so voracious, but he made the whale's 
 visit the occasion of a gorge, and carried off masses of the half 
 putrid flesh as a present to his inland acquaintances. Mr. Liddy, 
 who had the first garden on Melbourne Eastern Hill, found the sable 
 strangers fond of the cabbage, but without a relish for the potatoe. 
 
 The Native Cook was pronounced by Mitchell and others to be no 
 despicable artiste. Innocent of lucifers and the veteran sulphur 
 matches, the aborigine procured fire from friction of two pieces of 
 wood. We were confidentially informed that the proper material 
 came from the mountains, "All the same apple tree." One piece 
 was three or four feet long, and the other much shorter. In the 
 first, about the middle, a hole was made, and partially filled with 
 dry bark reduced to a fine powder. Fixing one end of the larger 
 stick against a tree for support, and holding the other end in his 
 hand, the native rapidly moved the other pointed stick among the 
 bark particles in the hole until smoke appeared. The Marquesan 
 islander has a somewhat similar method. But he mounts astride 
 one stick, while he rubs the other up and down the first until a 
 groove be made. He quickens his motion, until fire issues from the 
 dusty particles which the friction creates at the end of the groove. 
 
 The lazy mode of cookery is by pitching the meat on the live 
 embers. But they cook splendidly by steam. The meat or fish is 
 laid at the bottom of a hole upon a heated stone, and covered with 
 clean grass. A stick stands upright upon this, while the earth is 
 thrown into the hole. Then extracting the stick, water is poured 
 down upon the stone, and the steam raised is kept within. The meat 
 was sometimes laid in hollow bark to save the gravy, in the same 
 way as the North Australians bake their turtles in the shell. A 
 capital dish was prepared by putting the fish upon wet grass resting 
 on the hot ashes, in alternate layers to the top of the hole. Eggs 
 are cooked in ashes. Ants' eggs are roasted on bark slips. Though 
 it is usual to cast the opossum or kangaroo whole upon the fire, 
 the intestines are always extracted when warmed through ; these 
 were then washed, dressed seperately, and reserved as the choice 
 morsel for a i'rieud or the individual capturer of the game.
 
 52 
 
 HUNTING. 
 
 Without monetary cares, without the necessity of heavy toil for 
 the maintenance of his family, the Port Phillip native must have 
 had a comfortable life. His lubra gathered roots, and when it 
 suited him, rather for pastime than necessity, he would take his 
 spear, boomerang or waddy, and soon return with a bountiful 
 supply. Fancying an opossum, he would cut notches in the bark for 
 his toes with a stone hatchet, quickly ascend the lofty tree, ex- 
 amine a hole or two in decaying limbs, twist out a fellow by the 
 tail, and hurl him down to the dogs below. Both the emu and 
 wild turkey are very shy, and difficult of approach. Our dark 
 brothers, therefore, had stealthily to approach them under cover 
 of a large green bush. One Yarra blackfellow gave us a capital 
 description of catching the turkey. Armed with a long rod, having 
 a noose at the end, and a little bird fastened to the top, the hunter 
 in the moving bush nears the victim. The silly fowl walks up to 
 the struggling captive, and pecks at him. The adroit savage watches 
 his opportunity, and judiciously turns his rod to entrap and strangle 
 his prize. The turkey is quietly removed, and the bait is success- 
 ful with a mate. The pretty Lyre bird is more awake, and must 
 be waddied down. Boys practised throwing at birds with a wooden 
 instrument three feet long, terminating in an elongated egg shaped 
 knob, which had been charred to harden it. The young urchins 
 were expert in snoozing the wide awake Wood pigeon. 
 
 The net is an important feature in hunting. Those to entrap 
 kangaroos on their way home along their tracks are made out of 
 the bullrush root. Other nets are of the Wongul root. The fibres 
 are separated by mastication. The netting needle is like a lead 
 pencil, and round it the string is wound. No mesh is used. The 
 string of fibres rubbed on the lubra's thigh becomes a material 
 as neat as whipcord. The Goulburn blacks have fishing nets of a 
 sort of grass. The Yarra tribe fish with the spear. The Murray 
 men seek their finny friends at night, when a whole fleet may 
 be seen, with a fire of fragrant wood in the prow of their boats. 
 The canoe is of bark softened by fire and moulded to the shape, 
 which is afterwards maintained until hardened by props to keep 
 the sides apart. Such a vessel will not preserve its equilibrium
 
 53 
 
 without difficulty ; but every native is nearly amphibious. The 
 Murray blacks have ingenious modes of catching the water fowl. 
 We have seen them prowling among the reeds. A long stick with 
 a noose projects through their ambush, and hangs over the water 
 a tempting object. Sometimes they keep under water breathing 
 through a reed, and draw down the ducks floating above. Or, 
 they will float down the stream with their heads enveloped in a 
 thick bush of leaves, until they fall in with a quacking party. Oc- 
 casionally they dive down with a light spear, feel in the holes 
 for a fish, and fix him. The hunting grounds of a tribe are known 
 by well marked physical features in a country. Incantations were 
 often resorted to when a grand chase was to take place. 
 
 SONGS AND DANCES. 
 
 When approaching a native camp in the evening, the traveller's 
 ear is saluted with the monotonous tune of some forest ditty, now 
 soft and slow, and then rapid and vehement. Without the squall 
 and frightful time of a London ballad singer, it wants variety of 
 cadence and intelligibility of language to suit our taste. Yet the 
 sound is not without musical power. Simple as the notes are, 
 they have an influence upon an excitable people, soothing their 
 passions, arousing their vengeance, or enkindling their desire. 
 The self congratulations of the tuneful circle are not foreign to the 
 self-satisfied nod of the village chorister, after the execution of 
 Handel or the doing of Bishop. If not attracted by their harmony, 
 we are not repelled by their discord. Their measure is admirably 
 maintained. The knocking of two sticks performs the office of 
 Hullah's clap, and Julien's baton. The crescendo and diminuendo, 
 the andante and allegro, are indicated and followed with accuracy 
 and taste. Ignorance of their speech prevents the due appreciation 
 of their lyrics. Dr. Lang, in his learned ethnological work upon 
 the South Sea islanders, gives the following story. " A Scotch 
 clergyman," says he, " who was settled some time ago in the 
 interior of the Colony, and who has studied the language of the 
 aborigines, has assured me that a black native has on one occasion 
 repeated to him a poem, descriptive of a warlike expedition against 
 
 s
 
 54 
 
 some hostile tribe, extending to not fewer than fifteen stanzas, and 
 evincing poetical feeling to a considerable degree." 
 
 Some writers, as Governor Grey, Mr. Howitt and others, have 
 given us translations, or embodied poetic sentiments of the natives 
 in a pleasing manner. We will only venture to give two of these 
 of local interest. One by Mr. Kichard Howitt, composed in 1840, 
 entitled " Tullamarine," giving name to a district of the county 
 of Bourke. The other is taken from Mr. Allen's South Australian 
 Magazine for 1842, and refers to a tradition of an overflow of the 
 Murray river. 
 
 TULLAMARINE. 
 
 Tullamarine, thou lovely flower, 
 I saw thee in a happy hour ; 
 When first I gazed upon my boy, 
 I saw thee with a mother's joy. 
 
 Methought thy beauty on me smiled ; 
 And by thy name I called my child : 
 And thence alike with joy were seen, 
 Both boy and flower, Tullamarine. 
 
 The lights in heaven appear, and go : 
 Both stars and flowers their seasons know : 
 Thus, in thy season, thou art seen; 
 Sweet earthly star, Tullamarine. 
 
 Soother of many a weary hour, 
 By mountain stream, in forest bower : 
 I gathered thee with choicest care, 
 And wore thee fondly in my hair. 
 
 Wide wandering through the woods away, 
 Where with thy bloom the ground was gay, 
 I called thee then the " flower of joy," 
 Sweet namesake of my darling boy. 
 
 He grew, he flourished by my side, 
 He ran, he gathered thee with pride ; 
 But, woe is me ! in evil hour 
 Death stole away my human flower. 
 
 I wonder in my sorrow's night, 
 My star is emptied of its light ; 
 Thou, flower of joy, art changed to grief, 
 Thy dews, my tears are on thy leaf. 
 
 Therefore do I behold in vain, 
 Thy beauty, look on it with pain ; 
 I see thee with an inward groan, 
 Because I look on thee, alone.
 
 55 
 
 All things my sorrow seem to share, 
 There broods a sadness on die air ; 
 There hangs a gloom along the sky, 
 My boy is dead, and thou shouldst die. 
 
 Now for the joy which long I had, 
 The sight of thee must make me sad : 
 So in my path no more be seen, 
 But, deck his grave, Tullamarine. 
 
 THE MURRAY TRADITION. 
 
 They believe that, many years ago, their own tribe, with numer- 
 ous others, lived in the interior towards the N. N. E., where there 
 was abundance of gum trees, opossums, and fresh water ; that the 
 sorcerers of the land of Toolcoon, a neighbouring country, set the 
 bush on fire, the flames of which spread in all directions, driving 
 the natives before it, and destroyed many tribes. Coma, the pro-, 
 genitor of the Murray tribes, was on the point of perishing, with 
 his family, when the Murray burst from a cleft in the ground and 
 extinguished the flames around them. It flowed on, till it came to 
 the sea, and has, ever since, formed a barrier to the fire extending 
 across the continent, as it did once in ancient times. Whether 
 this story has any foundation in the facts of former ages, it would 
 be vain to attempt to determine, but it is evidently based on 
 natural causes now in existence, and in extensive operation. 
 
 TARRUNKIE. 
 
 Where is the light and the father of days, 
 Whither has black night, his burning face, driven 5 
 Was it quenched in the ocean, that drank up his rays, 
 Or, again will he glide through the regions of heaven? 
 
 CHERABOC. 
 
 Far off, on Parnka's* distant side, 
 Where the lake mingles with the sky, 
 And farthest hills the banks divide, 
 Where Murray flows majcsticly, 
 Mark thou, the brighter shades that spread, 
 And break the blending mists in twain ; 
 Chase the dull clouds from 1'arnka's bed, 
 And lift mom's eyelid up again ! 
 
 'Tis the sunshine, 
 1 1 ^lenin is there, 
 Night doth resign 
 The realms of air ! 
 Lake Victoria.
 
 56 
 
 The swan doth rise on heavy wing, 
 And shrilly pipes his morning note, 
 The meroles* from the she-oak sing, 
 The ducks, from lake side, slowly float ; 
 The wary cranes, of snowy white, 
 Do look around with care, 
 And pelicans, at every height 
 Wing circles in the air ; 
 The bittern booms, the blue-bird calls 
 His mate, with flaming crest; 
 The dew from every leullet falls, 
 Whereon a bird did rest. 
 
 Then let us join the happy throng ; 
 Come, rise up black men all, 
 And, with the merry birds of song, 
 Respond to nature's call ! 
 
 TARRUNKIE. 
 
 Long did our fathers wander through 
 
 The lofty gum trees' shade, 
 And marked the yearly falling strew 
 
 The soil, where it had stayed 
 Unmoved, for long, long years, 
 
 Weeping its blood-red tears. 
 
 An old wife, breathless, fled and came 
 Upon their paths, pressed by the flame 
 Of the bush fire which ran 
 And the hot winds did fan 
 Close after her, and crackled round, 
 Sweeping the forest to the ground, 
 With crash on crash, and fire and smoke 
 Followed her steps and thus she spoke 
 " Up, Cornaf up, and fly with me, 
 
 Thy children and thy wife, 
 If, haply, we may reach the sea, 
 And save our perilled life. 
 
 " From Toolcoon's distant land I come 
 
 Where fiery spirits dwell, 
 Who have destroyed my tribe, my home, 
 
 And seek our race to quell. 
 
 " Though many tribes of men I've passed, 
 That scorn my hurried word, 
 
 Yet, as the flames did follow fast, 
 Their dying shrieks I heard. 
 
 * Native Magpies. 
 
 t Coma signifies Black Man.
 
 57 
 
 " Thine, Corna, is the only race 
 
 The angry fiends can spare, 
 Then, up, and with thy quickest pace, 
 
 By flight, my safety share." 
 Corna left spear and shield, and fled ; 
 
 Each lubra seized a son, 
 The father took two girls and sped, 
 
 Whither their guide did run. 
 The sea was very far away ; 
 
 Although they quickly fly, 
 Faster the flames pursued, and they 
 
 Thought only but to die. 
 The old wife, faint and weary grown 
 
 Fell down a tree beneath, 
 And yielding up a heavy groan, 
 
 She ceased, thenceforth, to breathe. 
 Whither shall Corna fly for weak, 
 
 His lubras slowly crawl, 
 What place of refuge shall he seek 
 
 Against that fiery wall ? 
 The smoke, die old wife's form concealed, 
 
 The fire came swiftly on, 
 The flames did reach the brain, he reeled, 
 
 And Coma's sense was gone. 
 A form rose from the kindled grass, 
 
 Where the old wife had died, 
 And, through the burning woods did pass, 
 
 Till Corna she espied. 
 
 She stamped upon the ground, a flood 
 
 Burst from the heated soil, 
 Which, round about the blazing wood, 
 
 Began to hiss and boil. 
 
 The water rose, the earth did cool, 
 
 The old wife, in her hand, 
 Took up a little from the pool, 
 
 And sprinkled on the band. 
 " Corna, my son ! arise, and live, 
 
 These waters, far and wide, 
 To thee, and to thy sons I give, 
 
 To dwell, their banks beside. 
 
 "Toolcoon shall ne'er pursue, or burn 
 
 Thee, or any children more, 
 This river back its flames shall turn, 
 
 E'er they approach thy shore. 
 
 " Here is a tiny, barken, boat, 
 Thou, with a spear, mayst guide ; 
 
 Fear not, but it will safely float, 
 And launch it on the tide. 
 
 " Do thou, the downward stream pursue, 
 
 Until thou well canst hear 
 The roar of ocean, or thy view 
 
 Of its blue waves be clear.
 
 58 
 
 " That is thy land, this river there, 
 Will spread abroad its waves ; 
 
 Thine and thy children's home, where'er 
 Its seaward current laves. 
 
 " There make thy paths, and every child 
 
 Will follow in thy track, 
 But shun the inland scrubby wild, 
 
 That teems with shadows black. 
 
 " The fish, that sport with shining scale, 
 And all the beasts that drink. 
 
 And birds, that gaily fly and sail 
 About the reedy brink. 
 
 " There are enough for thee to eat, 
 
 So climb not in the tree, 
 That may deceive thy careful feet, 
 
 Or bruise thy active knee. 
 
 " Give thou unto this stream my name 
 
 Parnka, Ooroondooil's own, 
 And, when a man disputes thy claim, 
 
 Show him this charmed stone. 
 
 " His sight will fail, and dark as night, 
 
 His blighted orbs will roll, 
 Until he owns my Coma's right, 
 
 And Parnka's high control." 
 
 Corna sailed down the rapid stream, 
 
 For many, many mi les, 
 At length he saw wide waters gleam, 
 
 And cliffs that loomed like isles. 
 
 The current swiftly swept across ; 
 
 His bark upon the lake, 
 Did roughly on the billows toss, 
 
 And every fibre shake. 
 
 Till as he drew the heights between, 
 
 That form the western head, 
 From whence the sandy hills are seen, 
 
 That rise from ocean's bed. 
 
 He heard the roar upon the beach, 
 
 He saw the breaker's haze, 
 He turned his bark, in haste, to reach 
 
 A hill, to mount and gaze. 
 
 'Neath Taipang's crag, the weary man 
 
 Brought in his light canoe, 
 Himself and lubras cramped and wan, 
 
 Their legs they hardly knew. 
 
 Corna sat down beside his fire, 
 
 And here, upon this rock, 
 Was the first wurly of our sire, 
 
 The cradle of our stock.
 
 59 
 
 Dancing is the music of the feet, the poetry of movement. It 
 is associated with social gatherings and religious worship. There 
 have been sacred dances among the Egyptians, Greeks, Buddhists, 
 Jews, Mahometans, and Christians. Whatever connection some 
 dances of the Australian natives may have originally had with 
 idolatrous ceremonies, we are sure that the spirit of them has long 
 since departed. We have our Kangaroo dance, Emu dance, Frog 
 dance, &c. The ancient Celts held moonlight corrobories. Layard 
 witnessed a night dance among the devil worshippers of Assyria. 
 The Dyaks of Borneo have a similar practice with our aborigines. 
 The Indians of America, like these, terminated their dances with 
 a loud " Waugh !" But a simple sketch of the author's observa- 
 tions of a Corrobory, may interest those who arrive in the Colony, 
 to behold a scattered, deteriorated, spiritless, and decimated people. 
 
 The moon is full ; and the hills that had glared in the noontide 
 heat, and sympathised with the declining sun in varying hues of 
 gold, of purple, and of ashey grey, now softly sleep in the calm 
 and holy light. The Laughing Jackass has carolled his farewell 
 note, and the Bat mysteriously flits its eccentric course, when 
 from the valley there rises a sound unlike any other, which tells of 
 departing sympathies and a departing race. We go nearer there, 
 amidst that dusky mass, we distinguish the plaintive chant, the 
 tapping of time sticks, and the muffled murmur of opossum rug 
 drums. Various companies are sitting round small fires, occasion- 
 ally bursting into blaze as dry boughs or a few leaves are laid on 
 the embers. Women have folded their rugs and placed them 
 between their thighs, and now beat them with the open palm of 
 their hand. Some are seated cross-legged, singing a mournful 
 dirge, with their eyes downward and with a melancholy aspect. 
 There is no interruption, for the tune subdues the loquacity of the 
 loquacious tribe. A livelier air succeeds ; the old men beat their 
 sticks quicker, the turn turn is louder, the eyes brighten, a laugh 
 now and then interludes, the prattling begins, and with the last 
 sharp, shrill chord rushes in a tumult of noisy merriment. 
 
 But the Corrobory is to begin. Certain important looking old 
 gentlemen are gliding about, consulting and giving directions about 
 the f6te. The performers see that the pipe-clay lines of beauty
 
 60 
 
 upon their bodies are in proper order, redaubiug where necessary. 
 After an amount of fussing, coquetting, fidgetting, and confusion, 
 worthy of a more civilised reunion, there is a fall to places. The 
 ladies squat near the fires, clear their throats for a song, and give 
 an extra tightening to their drums. The old men sit or stand in 
 groups. The young men spring blithely into the centre, accom- 
 panied by an involuntary Ha ! Ha ! of admiration from the throng 
 of ebon beauties. Some little bantering passages between the 
 sexes are silenced by the seniors, in growls from their white haired 
 lords, and spiteful snappings from the shrivelled hags of mammas. 
 Silence is called. The ranks are formed. The moon's beams rest 
 upon the naked performers. With bunches of gum leaves in their 
 hands, and others round their ankles, like flying Mercuries, the 
 dancing men are ready. The band strikes up. Slowly moving 
 their bodies from side to side, the young men gracefully and tremu- 
 lously move their hands to the measure. At a signal, the legs 
 commence a similar motion, having a most grotesque and unnatural 
 appearance. The flesh of the thigh and calf is seen quivering in 
 an extraordinary manner. This excites deep interest in the spec, 
 tators. Exclamations of delight issue from the eager witnesses of 
 the performance, at some peculiarly charming and difficult wrigg- 
 ling of limb. After sundry chasseeing, the men break their line, 
 rush together in a mass, without disorder or confusion, leap upward 
 in the air, wave their boughs over their head, utter a loud 
 ' Waugh," and, bursting into laughter, join in a melee of chatter- 
 ing, and receive the hearty congratulations of their friends. Some 
 of the enthusiastic females persist in grasping our hand, and 
 pointing to the distinguished actors, with a roguish, merry leer, 
 crying out, " Very good that corrobory ; very good blackfellow ; 
 you give him sixpence ?" 
 
 Bathed in perspiration, the young men obtain a drink, stretch 
 themselves upon the dewy grass, and take a spell. But the 
 ancients have arranged for another dance, of a different movement 
 from the other, and the stand up process is re-enacted. The 
 interest is renewed, and the lady of night floats on her silvery way 
 over a great arch of the heavens, before the corrobory is over, the 
 filled, and the dancer at rest.
 
 61 
 
 Occasionally they have a pretty game, something like our hoop. 
 One will take a tuft of Emu feathers in his hand, and go off to a 
 little distance. Then, holding aloft the feathers, he would plunge 
 into the forest, or dodge among the women, pursued by a lot of 
 young men. Now and then the shaking of the trophy would he 
 seen in the twilight shade, as the bearer managed to elude obser- 
 vation, and again came into view. Tumultuous mirth followed the 
 successful capture. A young fellow is noticed led by two others 
 into the camp. The evidence of intense agony, as from some 
 terrible accident, is as strong on the form of the one, as that of 
 sympathising solicitude on the features of the others, while tenderly 
 supporting their friend. The camp fires are deserted, and anxious 
 faces gather round the group ; when all at once the lame man leaps 
 up with a whirr r , his carriers burst into laughter at the sucess 
 of the deception, and a long and pleasant yabber is the result. The 
 dances of the women are intended for the amusement of the other 
 sex, and are not more- remarkable for chaste propriety than the 
 celebrations of some more refined- communities. 
 
 One of the finest corrobories was witnessed by W. Hull, Esq., 
 J.P., on April 22, 1845, when a party of 800 visited Melbourne 
 at the full moon. A huge edifice, (if so it may be called,) of 
 stringy bark branches was constructed, and divers rude hierogly- 
 phics were daubed by the old men, who alone penetrated within 
 this Adytum. In the morning, nothing was to be seen. A superior 
 corrobory took place in 1839, on the Eastern Hill, opposite to the 
 site of the Argus office. Another curious performance, with a 
 dim shadowing of meaning, was witnessed iu 1842. Fifty men, 
 with bunches of leaves reeled in serpentiue motion, hissing as they 
 went. Their arms were laid over the shoulders of others, who 
 sang a mysterious song. Arrived at a certain place, they all set 
 up a " Waugh," and ran full speed back to the wirlies. A new 
 line was formed, and new decorations prepared. Wands were 
 placed in their hands, ornamented with the down of cockatoos and 
 green boughs. A series of singular boundings succeeded, with 
 the aforesaid hissing. Again the whole party of dancers and 
 singers were observed in rapid flight toward the creek, yelling and 
 hallooing on the road. They halted at a bark hut, o the sides of
 
 62 
 
 which were ochre drawings in the shape of shields. After other 
 rapid evolutions, they threw their wands upon the roof, with air- 
 rending cries. The white men were told that this was not a corro- 
 bory, but a Gageed. Mr. Parker gives an account of a Yepcne, 
 or Dance of Death, upon the Loddon. It is a movement beneath 
 boughs. A solemn lengthened silence is then maintained in the 
 darkness of night. A sudden exclamation of joy, with mutual 
 kind congratulations, close the scene. Might not this have some 
 dreamy resemblance to the Egyptians mourning for the death of 
 Osiris, and their gladness for his recovery ? A grand site of native 
 gathering was near Mount Macedon, where there are many mas- 
 sive basaltic columns, some twenty feet high, the stones of which 
 have a convex base and a concave top. Here, amidst the magnifi- 
 cence of nature, with the moon piercing the shade of a gum forest, 
 and lighting up as a fairy scene the amphitheatre of romantic 
 looking mountains, the tribes would assemble in friendly greetings, 
 and enjoy their soul-stirring corrobories. 
 
 We were much struck one evening with an unearthly uproar, 
 arising from a large native camp. Yells were intermingled with 
 the turn turn of rugs and the barking of dogs. Running hastily 
 to the place, we saw the men naked as for a corrobory, sitting at 
 a distance in two large circles, with their eyes to the ground, 
 silent and motionless. Not a sound was to be heard from the 
 women and children ; but from one of the wirlies a low moan pro- 
 ceeded. We walked to the spot, and saw a poor creature in dying 
 agonies. Presently every man left the ground. Thinking our 
 presence was not required at such a season, we retired also. In 
 about half an hour the party reassembled, and a furious corrobory 
 ensued. Doubtless the death struggles had closed, and the natives 
 sought to dispel their gloom in the excitement of the dance. 
 
 WOMEN AND CHILDREN. 
 
 The native women in their wild state are seldom much encum- 
 bered with clothes. As in New Guinea the young females only 
 have a covering, and that but a very slight one, so the Australian 
 ladies are iilarly unadorned. Travellers declare that innocence
 
 63 
 
 is perfectly compatible with such an apparent breach of decorum. 
 Major Mitchell found the Port Phillip lubras unconscious of any 
 impropriety in their appearance. Some had a kind of basket work 
 to protect their backs from the cold, while they saw no occasion 
 to provide shelter elsewhere. The personal aspect of the females 
 is sometimes repulsive, they being far inferior to men in physical 
 developement. Short in stature, extremely attenuated in form, 
 with elongated and flaccid mammae, stubble like hair, thick lips, 
 and no Egyptian cleanliness, they rather resemble the Hottentot 
 Venus, than the ideal De Medici. One cause of this inferiority to 
 the males may be their very early marriages, their hard usage, and 
 as hard a fare. We have been favoured, however, with glances at 
 decided exceptions to this dark picture. Some six years ago the 
 Murray tribe visited their Adelaide friends. Among the river 
 Aborigines was a young female about sixteen years of age, who was 
 possessed of such charms as to elicit universal admiration. Her 
 form was as delicately and beautifully rounded as that of a Cir- 
 cassian dame. Her breasts were spherical, her hair parted in 
 glossy ringlets, her mouth exhibited a noble show of ivory, her 
 head was thoroughly Caucasian in shape, her eyes those brilliant, 
 wicked, restless orbs, with thin long, black, voluptuous lashes, 
 completed her fascinating appearance. Her opossum rug was 
 worn with the taste of a drawing room belle. The occasional 
 coquettish fall of her robe to expose her beauty, with the half 
 bashful, half delighted gaze at the spectator, when she discovered 
 her wilful and naughty inadvertence, would be worthy the imitation 
 of the most temptations light of a Harem. 
 
 The female Aborigine seldom bore a large family ; Buckley says 
 not often more than six. Old colonists speak of small tribes of a 
 score of individuals, fourteen or fifteen of whom would be children. 
 But what a frightful change must have come over the dark woman, 
 when we larn that last year only two native children were born in 
 an area of thousands of square miles, in the Portland Bay district ? 
 The young mother has not much preparation for her hour of sorrow, 
 no length of sufferings, and no repose after deliverance. A mixture 
 of charcoal and fat is rubbed over the skin of the newborn, as a 
 defence against insects and the heat. The tribe cannot wait for
 
 64 
 
 her, the next day she is on the trail. The half castes nre few ; 
 even in 1846 Mr. Robinson only knew of from 20 to 30, One of 
 the loveliest children we ever beheld was a half caste infant on the 
 banks of the Murray. With a rich bronze colour, soft curly hair, 
 and chubby, ruddy cheeks, he had the sparkling eyes of his really 
 pretty mother. One roguish little fellow of some fifteen months 
 would peep over the lubra's shoulder when a white man or woman 
 passed, and holding out its tiny hand, would laughingly whine in 
 English " gib me copper." The young folks of a camp are full of 
 fun. Although the father seldom condescends to a romp, the 
 maternal feelings are in all their natural .flay. We have repeatedly 
 spent an hour in watching their happy gambols. Once asking a 
 native to send her child to the Black School, she answered sorrow- 
 fully, " No, no, no, me plenty cry." Though the lubra may now 
 and then get a tap with a waddy for want of assiduity in procuring 
 her coolie a good dinner, or for being too chattingly familiar with 
 a young man, it is very rare that a child is struck ; the demonstra- 
 tion of temper is admired in the boy, as an evidence of future 
 warlike spirit. Kind, however, as the mother is to her offspring, 
 she has another favorite, on whom she lavishes her, caresses. No 
 lubra is seen without a pack of hungry, spotted, dirty, mangey 
 dogs, whose pups share with her own child her lactary blessing. 
 A friend told us he once saw outside of Melbourne, a native woman 
 suckling in their turns a little boy and four puppies. 
 
 MAREIAGES. 
 
 The old story is, that when a young man wanted a wife, he lay 
 in wait for a girl, sprang upon her like a tiger, felled her senseless 
 with his club, and dragged her off bleeding to his lair. We need 
 hardly say that this is a gross calumny upon the native character. 
 The process of courtship among them is about what it is with us. 
 What is called the throwing of sheep's eyes is the usual preliminary 
 of attack, followed by importunity, coyness, ardent avowals, and 
 bashful pleasure. There is one lamentable deficiency in their love 
 makings, which will dispose every sentimental youth and lassie to 
 consign them irretrievably to the doom of baboons ; we allude to
 
 .65 
 
 their incomprehensible non-appreciation of the mysteries of a kiss ! 
 The New Zealander and his neighbours have an agreeable substitute 
 for labial embraces they rubbed noses ; the strength of a lover's 
 attachment was estimated by the force of a cartilaginous pressure. 
 But our benighted Aborigines had not even this nasal consolation. 
 
 We received from a respected widower, who had passed the 
 fearful ordeal, a faithful and vivid description of a native courtship, 
 which we immediately transferred to paper, in language as similar to 
 his own as we could recollect. First telling us that if not pre- 
 viously engaged to a young unweaned lady, according to the fashion, 
 the young man sought a partner from a neighbouring tribe. He 
 would join them at a visit, and sit down at the family fire ; select- 
 ing that particular hearth graced by the presence of some youthful 
 beauty. Thus the courtship begins, according to our authority : 
 " Young man sit down, very fine young man, see one woman, very 
 fine young woman. She look at him, say, ' very fine young man.' 
 He look at her, say, ' very fine young woman.' He talk to her ; 
 she talk to him ; then plenty one talk, one day, many day. Then 
 he say, ' I like you my wife.' She say, ' I like you my husband.' 
 Then he say, ' you go when me ready ?' She say, 'me go when you 
 ready.' By and by she say, ' when you ready ?' Then she talk one 
 woman, all the same friend. She say, ' very nice young man, you 
 go along him his country ?' One day, young man walk about. Two 
 women walk about, plenty long way. Then fine young woman she 
 take hand fine young man, run away plenty fast his own country. 
 By and bye, big one angry that young woman father. Tribe come 
 young man tribe. Plenty spear and boomerang. So Blackfellow 
 get wife." 
 
 The system of early bethrothment prevails, as in most countries 
 of the world, and as it prevailed among the civilised nations of 
 Christian Europe not a long time ago. As polygamy was sanctioned 
 among these tribes, as among almost all nomadic people, from the 
 time of Bedouin Abraham to that of the present roving Tartars, 
 the grown folks got more of such promised favours than the 
 juveniles. Hence it was that old men might be seen with youthful 
 wives, while strapping young fellows were portionless. When we 
 sympathised with the latter upon their forlorn condition , the usual
 
 66 
 
 response was, " Never mind, plenty lubra one day." Some of 
 these Turks managed to have four or five ladies, who contrived 
 to plague the old fellows most woefully. In sheer desperation, 
 they have been known to make a present to a friend of some 
 shrivelled, ancient partner, who would foolishly complain of the 
 advent of another into the establishment. The man with two 
 wives, if they will only tolerably agree, lives a jolly life, as he 
 has a couple of providers. The condition of a junior wife is often 
 one of great hardship, from the jealousy and cruelty of her senior. 
 
 Dr. Palmer, the Speaker of the Council of Victoria, was lately 
 relating to us an illustration of the misery of polygamy. A 
 young woman, who had been servant in his family for several 
 years, and had proved industrious, affectionate, and thoroughly 
 well conducted, receiving not only the advantages of secular in- 
 struction but those of religious training, was afterwards obliged 
 to marry an old man to whom she had been bethrothed, and who 
 had already another wife. No longer clad, and living as a civi- 
 lized and a Christian woman, she was now a wanderer with her 
 besotted husband, amidst the filth, exposure, and depravity of a 
 native camp. But even this system is preferable to that of the 
 South Sea Islands, iu which one woman has two or more hus- 
 bands. 
 
 In the event of a girl, unbetrothed, being without a father, her 
 brother took charge of that property, and bestowed it on whom he 
 pleased-. Sometimes men would exhibit friendship by a change of 
 sisters. But the favorite mode was that of courtship in another 
 tribe. This subjected the parties to a little harmless fighting, and 
 a good corrobory made all friends again. Sometimes they adopted 
 the old English system of trial by wager of battle. The aggrieved 
 parties demanded justice of the eloper's tribe. The young man 
 stood forth naked at a fixed distance, armed defensively with a 
 shield. The friend of the stolen lady then threw a certain number 
 of spears, one after the other ; these were to be parried off through 
 the activity of the Gretna Greener. Sometimes a flesh wound 
 would be received, but this was a rare case. If not satisfied, or, 
 if such were the agreement, the same number of boomerangs were 
 next hurled. Having made the requisite atonement, justice was
 
 67 
 
 declared satisfied ; and the hero walked up to his lady love, received 
 her formally from her tribe, and, amidst universal congratulations, 
 bore off his prize. 
 
 As among the ancient Jews, the wife was always transferred to 
 the brother of the deceased husband. A widow was obliged to wait 
 two weeks before another match ; a widower was not subjected to 
 such restraint. Before a regular marriage takes place between a 
 native and his betrothed one, the mother of the girl must on no 
 account look upon the face of her intended son-in-law, else her 
 hair would immediately turn grey. Therefore, great care was 
 exercised by the gentleman to avoid her presence. While the man 
 could dispense with the services of his helpmate, his other half 
 had not equal previleges. It was not so in Poyn, according to old 
 Marco Polo, for there if a husband was absent from home for twenty 
 days, his wife was allowed to select another protector ; or, as in 
 Nair, according to the same authority, where women of rank were 
 betrothed in infancy, but afterwards permitted to select a home 
 companion away from her partner. Cases of adultery were in 
 former times visited with vengeance in Australia. Buckley tells 
 us that it was a great disgrace to have an illegitimate child, who 
 was almost certain to be killed. The domestic life of the Aborigi- 
 nes differs from ours. When retiring for the night, the husband 
 rolls himself up in his rug with his feet to the fire ; ar>d on the 
 other side, it may be, the wife, similarly enveloped, composes herself 
 to sleep. On one occasion only did we meet with husband and 
 wife beneath the same coverlid in European fashion. 
 
 Governor Grey haa very prettily hit off a piece of family history, 
 in the shape of a squabble between an ancient lubra and her lord, 
 about the latter introducing another spouse into the household : 
 
 Wherefore came ye, Weerang, 
 
 In my beauty's pride, 
 
 Stealing cautiously 
 
 Like the tawny boreang (wild dog), 
 
 On an unwilling bride. 
 
 ''I'was thus you stole me 
 
 From one that loved me tcndcily 1 
 
 A better man he was than thee, 
 
 Who having forced me thus to wed, 
 
 Now so oft deserts my bed. 
 
 Yang, yang, yang, yoh 1
 
 68 
 
 where is he that won 
 My youthful heart, 
 Who oft' used to bless 
 And call me loved one ; 
 You Weerang tore apart 
 From his fond caress 
 
 1 1 r whom you now desert and shun ; 
 Out upon thee, faithless one ; 
 (.) may the Boyl-yas bite and tear 
 Her, whom you take your bed to share. 
 Yang, yang, yang, yoh ! 
 
 Wherefore does she slumber 
 
 Upon thy breast 
 
 Once again to-night, 
 
 Whilst I must number 
 
 Hours of sad unrest and broken plight ? 
 
 Is it for this that I rebuke 
 
 Young men, who dare at me to look ? 
 
 While she, replete with arts and wiles 
 
 Dishonours you, and still beguiles. 
 
 THE HUSBAND RETORTS. 
 
 Oh ! you lying artful one ! 
 Wag away your dirty tongue ; 
 
 1 have watched your tell tale eyes 
 Beaming love without disguise ; 
 I've seen young Imbat nod and wink 
 Oftener perhaps than you may think. 
 
 Blows with the waddy, followed by a shrill cry, close this dialogue. 
 
 INFANTICIDE AND CANNIBALISM. 
 
 The destruction of children arises not from a want of maternal 
 affection, but from the will of the tribe, the difficulty of following 
 roving husbands with infants, and the want of natural food for such 
 offspring. The last reason is a strong one. The character of 
 native food is unsuitable to very young children. These depend 
 upon their mother for a period of twice or thrice the time of 
 Europeans. Mr. Wedge wrote of our Blacks in 1835, " They 
 have another custom, namely, that of destroying their new born 
 children, if born before the former child has reached the age of 
 three or four years, until which time they are not weaned." 
 Buckley is made to say, ' ' So soon as they have as many as they 
 can conveniently carry about and provide for them, they kill the 
 rest immediately after birth ; not to eat them, but with the idea, 
 that, for the sake of both parties, and under such circumstances,
 
 69 
 
 death is practical mercy." Again, upon the same authority, we 
 
 learn, " If a family increases too rapidly, they hold a consultation 
 
 among the tribe she belongs to, as to whether it shall live or not ; 
 
 but if the father insists upon the life of the child being spared, they 
 
 do not persist in its destruction." It appears to have been also 
 
 the custom, when a woman was promised to one man but given to 
 
 another, to kill the first child. If two were born at a birth, one 
 
 was usually strangled. Humboldt mentions the same thing of the 
 
 Guiana Indians ; though that was because it was so much like rats 
 
 to have two at a time. Mr. Assistant Protector Parker adds 
 
 another reason for the practice, reflecting on the women ; " because 
 
 they feared to get prematurely old and unacceptable to their hus- 
 
 Taands." The fearful crime of producing abortion by pressure was 
 
 not uncommon, especially after a quarrel between man and wife. 
 
 Dr. Ross has this statement in his almanac for 1836 : " One female, 
 
 the wife of Nullaboid was pointed out to Mr. Wedge, as having 
 
 destroyed ten out of eleven of her children." Mr. Protector 
 
 Thomas talks despairingly of the practise, alleging that the natives 
 
 have lost heart, and wish to have no children live after them, 
 
 because they have no country now. The half castes have almost 
 
 always been killed. A woman when appealed to about it, simply 
 
 answered, " No good, all the same warrigal," or, like wild dog. 
 
 Mr. Briarty of the Upper Yarra lately saved a half caste from 
 
 destruction by his entreaties. A lubra speaking to us upon the 
 
 subject frankly exclaimed : " Blackfellow kill 'era plenty white 
 
 picaninny." They have been known to acknowledge the murder of 
 
 infants, on the plea, " What for picaninny, white fellow shoot 'em 
 
 when 'em young man." 
 
 Cannibalism is a revolting practice, but belonging to all ages, 
 and almost all countries. We need not be too hard upon the Port 
 Pliillil> Black, when we remember that our own forefathers, the 
 Saxons, as well as the Britons, were equally guilty of this crime. 
 Many nations of antiquity devoured the dead of their enemies. 
 The human sacrifices of Mexico were eaten. Not only the New 
 Zealanders, but all the South Sea Islanders were fond of such fle.sh; 
 also many tribes of At'ric.-i, South America, Borneo, and New 
 Guinea. The like foul habit existed in Japan, Tartnry, and South
 
 70 
 
 Eastern China. Old Sir John Mandeville talks of certain Monguls 
 relishing men's ears " soused in vynegre." Marco Polo gives a 
 narrative of coming to one place where they suffocated the dying, 
 and ate their friends. " When dressed," says that traveller, " the 
 relatives assemble, and, in a convivial manner, eat the whole of it, 
 not leaving so much as the marrow in the bones." Grievous 
 trouble would come to the deceased if not thus absolutely devoured. 
 There is an allusion to cannibalism in Lev. xxvi. 29. 
 
 Our blackfellows have long been accused of this crime. Mr. 
 Wedge, in his visit before the Whites settled here, wrote as fol- 
 lows : " The natives are Cannibals, but they do not indulge in this 
 horrible propensity except in times of war, when the bodies of 
 those who are killed are roasted and eaten. They make no secret 
 of this barbarous custom, but speak of it as a matter of course, 
 and coolly describe their manner of preparing the repast, the pro- 
 cess of which is too revolting to commit to paper." We give a 
 quotation from Buckley : " The mangled remains of the man were 
 roasted between heated stones, and they ate part of them, and no 
 mistake." Speaking of another, he says, " The remains were 
 shared out, and greedily devoured." We have from the same 
 authority, an account of the murder of a deformed child, the 
 brother of whom was compelled to eat of its flesh, to prevent some 
 evil happening to it. In Mr. Morgan's life of Buckley, occurs the 
 following remarkable story of a Port Phillip tribe. " In my wan- 
 derings, I met with the Pallidurgbarrans, a tribe notorious for their 
 cannibal practices ; not only eating human flesh greedily after a 
 fight, but on all occasions when it was possible. They appeared to 
 be the nearest approach to the brute creation of any I had ever 
 seen or heard of, and, in consequence, they were very much dreaded. 
 Their color was light copper, their bodies having tremendously large 
 and protruding bellies. Huts or artificial places of shelter were 
 unknown to them, it being their custom to lay about in the scrub, 
 any how and any where. Their brutality at length became so 
 harassing, and their assaults so frequent, that it was resolved to set 
 fire to the bush where they had sheltered themselves, and so anni- 
 hilate them, one and all, by suffocation. This in part succeeded, 
 for I saw no more of them in my time."
 
 71 
 
 Mr. Assistant Protector Sievwright describes a woman being cut 
 open, the blood drank, part of the flesh eaten raw, and the other 
 roasted. Dr. Thomson sent the head of a baked child to the Edin- 
 burgh Museum. The Murray natives never ate the head, but threw 
 that into the river. An old colonist informed us that a lady friend 
 of his was a great favourite with the Yarra Blacks, from a belief 
 that she was the risen appearance of one of their own people ; con- 
 sequently, she had secrets told her that were withheld from others. 
 One day a lubra came to her with something under her blanket ; 
 ?he then produced a piece of a cooked child, requesting the lady 
 not to tell. Mr. Sutherland was our informant about a cannibal 
 scene, when a party was after poor Mr. Gellibrand in 1837. The 
 Barrabool tiibe had captured an old man and a young girl belonging 
 to the Lake Colac tribe, whom they had unjustly charged with the 
 murder of their friend Gellibrand. The child was killed and 
 roasted, and the fat employed for macassar oil. Some of the warm 
 flesh was laughingly offered to the Englishmen ; Dr. Cotter, we 
 believe, brought away part of the thigh as an evidence of the fact. 
 Half a dozen children, left as a pledge of friendship with the wild 
 Gipps Land tribe, were killed and devoured by their careful guar- 
 dians. In Mr. Fawkner's Geelong Adventures of April, 1841, is 
 a notice of some such feast, when two lubras affectionately tendered 
 a choice smoking morsel to the Protector. 
 
 WEAPONS. 
 
 Mr. Tuckey in 1803, considered the native's spear harmless 
 against the kangaroo. But the weapon is not to be despised in the 
 hand of a strong man. Upon the Murray the light spear is called 
 a Kiko ; the oval shield, a Hieleman ; the Wommera or throwing 
 stick, applied to the spear as a lever for accelerating its motion, a 
 Nga-waouk ; the short, knobbed stick, a Bwirris. Buckley tells 
 us that the Yarra Blacks called the jagged spear a Earnwell ; the 
 hunting spear, a Daar ; the Boomerang, a Wangaara ; the two 
 shields, Malka and Seaugwell. The latter is narrow, with a knob, 
 and is used offensively. The Malka, to ward off blows, is two or
 
 72 
 
 three feet long, and is provided with a handle. These are made of 
 bark or red gum. The Nella or Waddy is a stout stick. The 
 Langiel is a stick with an elbow, which served as a sort of halbert. 
 The jagged spear is furnished with pieces of angular quartz, stuck 
 on with gum ; about a week is necessary to harden it. The spear 
 is of Iron bark or Box. The Throwing Stick, in a socket of which 
 the spear end rested when poised, is made of Cherry tree or Wattle. 
 
 RELIGION AND MISSIONS. 
 
 Religious ideas are a guage of development. Centralization of 
 a race begets a regular system of worship, definite creeds, and 
 established sacerdotal arrangements. A people dependent upon 
 priestley administrations for the services of religion, may soon 
 degenerate in pious fervour when deprived of that agency. The 
 ancestors of our Australian tribes may have mingled in gorgeous 
 celebrations of worship, and bowed to multiplied and complicated 
 mysteries. But when isolated by any cause from communion with 
 others, or, expatriated, wandering in mere families over distant and 
 strange countries, early associations would gradually lose their 
 force, and traditions be less regarded. Thus the hunting tribes of 
 New Holland became worshipless. 
 
 Attempts have been made to show that they had a conception of 
 Deity and of another state. But it is passing strange that the 
 vagaries of one people were wholly unknown to their neighbours, 
 and that interesting legends narrated by some should be perfectly 
 new to others of their own tribe. We strongly suspect that many 
 of these traditions are but concocted yarns to excite the wonder of 
 a white visitor. We have taken some pains during the last fifteen 
 years to ascertain from missionaries, settlers and natives, whether 
 they were acquainted with the Supreme Being before the white 
 man came. The result of our enquiries is a reply in the negative. 
 They were a godless, prayerless race. The New Zealanders and 
 South Sea Islanders, on the contrary, were not so. Before they 
 launched their canoes for fishing, they addressed their Deities for 
 protection and success. This development of the reverential was 
 an auxiliary to missionary enterprize. Far different is it with
 
 73 
 
 Fuegians and Australians, whose sentiment of veneration was 
 certainly objectless, and who, therefore, cannot he charged with 
 the sin of idolatry. Their non appreciation of religion is some- 
 times exhibited in a painfully ludicrous light. A boy who had 
 been taught the Lord's Prayer one day remarked to his teacher a 
 practical difficulty in his scholastic career. He said, that when out 
 in a desert where food was scarce, he had often repeated " Give us 
 this day our daily bread," and yet no 'possum came ; observing, as 
 he walked away, " Plenty gammon all that yabber." One who had 
 quietly endured a long discourse at a mission station in the hope of 
 a good tuck out. was very much disgusted at the small donation he 
 received, and thus vented his spleen : " No good that : plenty one 
 big yabber, picaninny plour " (flour). It was no adequate return 
 for the patience and forbearance he had manifested. 
 
 With a sincere recognition of the universal adaptation of the 
 principles of Christianity to the exigencies of fallen humanity, yet 
 we are almost disposed to regard as hopeless, under present 
 circumstances, any endeavours to convert the New Holland Abori- 
 gines. Analogies are so wanting, associations are so unfortunate, 
 native customs are so passively antagonistic, and the very genius of 
 religion is so foreign to their natures, that no decided results of 
 teaching can be expected within two generations. In the meantime 
 the race is silently passing away childless ! 
 
 There have not been wanting some feeble efforts to christianize 
 the natives of Port Phillip and the neighbouring colony of New 
 South Wales. But all such attempts have failed. Besides diffi- 
 culties previously mentioned, there were other powerful antagonisms 
 the restlessness of the people, the active opposition of some 
 settlers, and the bad example and teaching of many white men. 
 We were assured by a clergyman, that he once caught an English- 
 man deliberately instructing an Aborigine in the mysteries of 
 profane swearing. The old colony had been settled above thirty 
 years, before it was thought worth while to enquire about the souls 
 of the race whose lands were held. Then successively arose the 
 following missions : Native Institution, 1821 ; Lake Macquarie 
 Mission, 1^-7 ; Church of England Mission at Wellington Valley, 
 1836 ; German Mission at Moreton Bay, 1838. In Port Phillip
 
 74 
 
 a station on the Yarra, at the site of the Botanical Gardens, was 
 formed under Mr. George Langhorne soon after the arrival of Capt. 
 Lonsdale, in 1836. The Wesleyan Mission at Buntingdale, on the 
 Barwon, some forty miles west of Geelong, was initiated in 1836. 
 The missionaries were Messrs. Hurst and Tuckfield. The sums 
 granted by the government toward its support, were as follows : 
 1836, 221; 1837, 664 ; 1838, 1460; 1839, 631 ; 1840, 
 795; 1841, 450; 1842, 315; &c. A worthy effort was 
 made by the Baptist body in Melbourne in 1845, to gather some 
 native children together. The Rev. Thomas Ham, and Messrs. 
 Lush and Kerr were its active promoters. An establishment was 
 made on a tongue of land at the junction of the Merri Creek and 
 Yarra. Mr. Peacock was the first teacher ; he was succeeded by 
 Mr. Edgar. In 1846 there were 14 boys and 7 girls. The 
 mission lasted but a few years ; it was found impracticable to 
 retain the children, because of the parents wishing them to follow 
 them, and because the men sought the fellowship of the coloured 
 young ladies at the Mission House. Assaults have been made upon 
 the nunnery, and the not vestal virgins in a most Sabine manner 
 have been withdrawn, with the smiling consent of the abducted. 
 Yet fruits were not wanting ; some acquired a good knowledge of 
 arithmetic, &c. and most could read in our New Testament. The 
 singing was admired. Mr. Kerr supplied us with an anecdote of 
 this Merri Creek Establishment, which illustrated the maternal 
 feeling. Having brought the children to Town for examination at 
 the Baptist Chapel, they were provided with beds in Melbourne that 
 night, because it was too late to go home. But their absence was 
 soon known at the native camp, and some mischievous person spread 
 the report of the children being kidnapped and conveyed on ship- 
 board en route for whitefellow's country. Early in the morning the 
 town was filled with lamentations ; ebon Rachels weeping for their 
 children. To satisfy them, they were brought before the youths, 
 when mothers ran with streaming eyes toward their offspring, 
 fondled over them, and exhibited the wildest demonstration of joy. 
 The Yarra Establishment under Mr. Langhorne was of short 
 continuance. That gentleman officiated as a sort of protector as 
 well as missionary, receiving a salary of 150. He was assisted
 
 75 
 
 by Mr. John Thomas Smith, at present the Mayor of Melbourne, 
 who then acted as Schoolmaster to the Blacks upon a stipend of 
 40 a year. 
 
 We have the following interesting account of the Institution, 
 from the pen of Mr. Backhouse, the Quaker Missionary, in 
 company with his friend Mr. George Washington Walker, in 
 November, 1837. " Last night, we returned with our friends to 
 the Missionary Station, to lodge. The reserve for the Missionary 
 Institution is of 800 acres. This, though but a small extent of 
 land for a pastoral country, was considered sufficient to devote to 
 the object, at so short a distance from the town. The buildings 
 are temporary ones, of mud and plaister, with thatched roofs ; they 
 are not yet sufficiently extensive to accommodate the mission 
 family, and twelve native boys who are already under tuition. The 
 design is, to educate them in English, and to teach them useful 
 occupations, and then to let them mix themselves with the 
 European population ; with whom it is hoped, by these means, to 
 put them upon a level." 
 
 In April, 1844, the Church of England Society for the Propaga- 
 tion of the Gospel sent, through Lord Stanley, at the suggestion 
 of the Melbourne Branch, the following proposition to our Sydney 
 Authorities Port Phillip then being a Province of New South 
 Wales. Lamenting over the moral destitution of Europeans and 
 Aborigines, they undertook to provide for the religious instruction 
 of both parties, on condition of receiving a moiety of support 
 from the Government, and the use of the so called Village Reserves. 
 This offer was not accepted by our Colonial rulers, who questioned 
 the propriety of giving such advantages to one denomination of 
 Christians, especially the control of Village Reserves, in which 
 Townships might some day be established. A pleasing endeavour 
 is now being made to convert the Aborigines by a Church of 
 England Society. Their two missionaries are stationed toward the 
 junction of the Darling and Murray. The Moravian teachers near 
 Lake Boga have been compelled to return home, chiefly through 
 the opposition of some of their squatting neighbours. 
 
 Though the natives may be inaccessible to dogmatic teaching 
 upon the mysteries of our faith, they can understand the comforting
 
 76 
 
 belief in a future of happiness. Tims a female friend of ours was 
 once talking with a lubra pensioner. She enquired after the health 
 of William the sick husband of the dark mendicant. "Him 
 plenty bad him tumble down soon " (die) was the sorrowful 
 reply. A question was asked as to the future lot of departed 
 Aborigines. " Him go plenty long way come up whitefellow," 
 answered the lubra. Full of kindness toward the wandering, 
 neglected ones, the good lady unfolded to the benighted creature 
 the way of salvation. Rapt in attention, she listened to all until 
 she heard that if she were good and her husband good, she would 
 meet him in happy Heaven. Throwing up her arms, and with her 
 eyes streaming with tears, she exclaimed, " Me see William again, 
 oh ! that plenty good very good me see William me see 
 William again." The Christianity of the affections has charms for 
 even opossum clad Australians, 
 
 SUPERSTITIONS. 
 
 Superstition accompanies ignorance. The savage who will face a 
 raging lion, trembles at a shadow. Want of knowledge leads us 
 to imagine absurd causes of things, and to rely upon ideal agencies 
 for relief. Hence crude notions of philosophy, and the use of 
 charms. We will refer to some of the foolish superstitions of the 
 Port Phillip Blacks. As before intimated, we must not confound 
 any of these with religious ideas, because they seem to have a 
 connection more or less remote with the supernatural. 
 
 Our dark friends seldom quitted the camp fire at night, for fear 
 of encountering malignant spirits ; we know of more refined people 
 of more than one sex, who have similar timidity at the witching 
 hour of night. They have as much respect for their Doctors or 
 Sorcerers, as many of our London maidens have for fortune telling 
 Astrologers. A friend of ours saw an odd ceremony performed by 
 one of these gentlemen on three sable ladies laden with future 
 cares. They stood before him in usual native undress. He looked 
 at each attentively, catching the eye of the person. Drawing back 
 to a stump, he uttered an incantation. Then advancing to the 
 women, he blew on their bodies. This was repeated several times.
 
 77 
 
 It was doubtless intended to procure safety and deliverance in the 
 forthcoming hour of suffering. Kidney fat worn round the neck 
 was a wonderful preservative against evil. Mr. Eyre mentions 
 that the Murray Boylyas or Doctors used to carry upon state 
 occasions a stick ornamented with feathers ; he conjured rain hy 
 certain crystals, and charmed death away with a sacred dagger. 
 Evil spirits may be driven out of the air by divers means. Peter 
 the Great ordered all Russian bells to be rung, to frighten away 
 the devil that enabled the Swedes to beat him at Narva. In the 
 wilds of Port Phillip they had a simpler contrivance. The Doctor 
 seized the Mooyum Karr, a piece of oval board with a string 
 attached to it, and with a few hearty, whirring swings would 
 effectually purify the atmosphere from the presence of such 
 malignities. Man making is attended with several mysterious and 
 often torturing ceremonies, varying according to the tribe. 
 Different nations and religions have analogous celebrations of the 
 youth assuming manhood. The American Indian and South Sea 
 Islander undertake their solemn duties at the age of fourteen or 
 fifteen. The initiation of youth among our Blackfellows takes 
 place in the darkness of night, the seclusion of the forest, and in 
 the absence of the women. Like as with the Egyptian and Greek 
 mysteries, the noviciate undergoes considerable suffering during the 
 process. Previously and afterwards for several days he must eat 
 of nothing prepared by the hand of a female. The Indian is 
 similarly restricted. Among some Port Phillip tribes the hair is 
 plucked out by the roots from certain parts of the body, and green 
 leaves placed under the arm pits. Charmed pebbles placed in a 
 bag are to be worn round the neck, and never exhibited to a woman ; 
 the dust of these stones has great virtue in sickness. Other 
 masonic intelligence is to be withheld from the less sacred, or more 
 talcti'Hing sex. Occasionally a lad is smothered with mud, and has 
 his hair nearly all shaved off. With some he is said to be sent to 
 the Kipper Grounds. One tribe will place the boy upon a man's 
 shoulders, and the friend will pierce his own chest to let blood fall 
 upon his youthful ward. Incantations arc constantly being employed 
 by the old men. After all this, the youth may adorn his hair with 
 two kangaroo teeth and emu feathers. The effect of the ceremony
 
 78 
 
 upon lads is to make them more than ever devoted to the customs 
 of the tribes. There is no doubt but that the exhibition of certain 
 cabalistic signs by a passer by, has caused many a steady, hopeful 
 servant to throw up his charge, change his trousers for a dirty 
 blanket, and the hut for a wirlie. 
 
 The " Jump up Whitefellow " doctrine is odd enough. Buck- 
 ley's life was saved because he was believed to be the embodied 
 spirit of a deceased friend of the tribe. Mr. Wedge wrote in 1835, 
 " They certainly entertain the idea that after death, they will again 
 exist in the form of white men ; " though he thinks it an idea 
 borrowed from the whites. It is not without consolation to the 
 savage ; for, when one was being swung off on the Melbourne 
 gallows, he exclaimed, " Very good : me jump up whitefellow : 
 plenty sixpence." The belief is not confined to Port Phillip; 
 Captain Grey, when in Western Australia, was recognised and 
 most affectionately greeted and claimed as a returned son by an 
 uncommonly ugly old lubra. A gentleman of Moonie Ponds told 
 us, that while down in Port Fairy district, an old woman recognized 
 in his little girl a departed daughter of hers. There is an evident 
 relation here to the Asiatic doctrine of the transmigration of souls. 
 The Buddhist records inform us respecting a certain sanctified 
 priest, who made his spirit enter the body of a man dead, to 
 personate a character. The several incarnations of Vishun have 
 relation to it. The most distinguished men of learning and 
 philosophy in England, America, France and Germany are obtaining 
 fresh light upon the nature of the soul. They do not see why the 
 soul that was in Socrates may not reappear in some more modern 
 savant ; in short, there is reason to hope, that with a little more 
 study, those leaders of the intellect of the Old World will arrive 
 at the standard of mind as existing in the rude Port Phillip savage, 
 and honestly avow their conviction of the truth of that sublime 
 dogma, " Jump up Whitefellow." 
 
 Among the superstitions has been placed their belief in the 
 fabulous Bunyip. This monster was said to issue from the lakes, 
 and carry off children, and even women ; the natives never 
 attempted to kill one. Yet Buckley believed he saw one, the size 
 of a calf. Some early stockkeepers asserted the presence of a
 
 79 
 
 large amphibious animal, covered with hair. But since the more 
 complete settlement of the country, the Bunyip has disappeared, to 
 dwell with the banished ghosts and fairies of the olden time. 
 Among other notions, is that of some spirit stealing down a tree at 
 night, when the fire goes out, and so causing the death of the 
 party. Yet little dependence is to be placed upon this assertion, 
 for the natives invariably seek in more substantial beings than 
 ghosts the means of revenging such death. Sometimes upon the 
 departure of one of the tribe, the others will describe a circle on 
 the ground, place an insect within the ring, observe the direction 
 in which it crawls, and, running on in that direction, will kill the 
 first strange Blackfellow they meet, take away his kidney fat, and 
 ruh it over their bodies. 
 
 There is an allusion to this agency in the following pleasingly 
 rendered song : 
 
 Muldaubie, thy ill-omened cry 
 
 Troubles the sleeper's ear j 
 But if thy shadow meets his eye, 
 
 He knows that death is near. 
 Begone, our boys we need, 
 
 To throw the quivering spear ; 
 And let their young limbs bleed 
 
 For all they hold most dear. 
 Then turn thy evil form away 
 
 From where the Black man roams, 
 Nor come at eve or dawn of day 
 To desolate their homes. 
 
 Buckley thus describes their belief of the origin of fire. 
 " Their notion," says he, " of the origin of fire is this, that as a 
 native woman was digging at an ant hill one day, for the purpose 
 of getting their eggs for eating, a crow flying over dropped some- 
 thing like dry grass, which immediately blazed and set a tree on 
 fire. For this reason they very much respect the Waakee, as they 
 call the bird, and do not kill and eat it unless pressed by necessity." 
 Mr. Morgan professes to gain from the same person a description 
 of the Creation theory ; which is as follows : " They have a notion 
 that the earth is supported by props, which are in the care of a 
 man, who lives at the furthest end of the earth. They were 
 dreadfully alarmed on one occasion when I was with them, by news
 
 80 
 
 passed from tribe to tribe, that unless they could send him a supply 
 of tomahawks for cutting some more props with, and some more 
 rope to tie them with, the earth would go by the run, and all hands 
 would be smothered. Fearful of this, they began to think, and 
 enquire and calculate where the highest mountains were, and how 
 to get at them and on them, so as to have some chance of escape 
 from the threatened danger. Notwithstanding this forethought, 
 they set to work to provide the needful, and succeeded in this way. 
 Passing on the word to the tribes along the coast, some settlers at 
 a very great distance were robbed of axes, saws, and rope, and 
 tiers of dray wheels, all of which were forwarded on from tribe to 
 tribe to the Old Gentleman on the other side ; and, as was supposed, 
 in time to prevent the capsize, for it never happened." Now, with 
 all due respect to the memory of Buckley and to the worthy 
 Lieutenant Morgan, we venture to question the foregoing. With 
 such wondrous jealousy between tribes, with such marvellous 
 ignorance of tribes contiguous to each other, we fancy some difficulties 
 existed in the communication of the news of this interesting and 
 almost tragical event, the means of restoring the balance, and 
 getting from the settlers of the Sydney side, all along round the 
 coast some nine hundred miles, the spoil of a wheelwrights shop. 
 
 As to crude religious conceptions, we will now present a few of 
 those supposed to be acknowledged by the natives, merely observing 
 again our scepticism of their authenticity for the singular want of 
 traditional agreement among the tribes, or even among individuals 
 of the same tribe. Mr. Eyre tells us that the Lower Murray 
 Aborigines believe in a certain old man in the sky named Nooreele, 
 who had several children without a mother, and who made a huge 
 serpent, to whom great power was given. Mr. Parker speaks of a 
 being called Bimbeal, and a devil or serpent named Mindi, with 
 souls entering the bodies of crows and bats. Mr. Hull, J. P., in 
 his interesting pamphlet published ten years ago, quotes informa- 
 tion from Mr. Parker respecting the Loddon Blacks. These are 
 supposed to recognise one Pundyil, who, a long time ago, cut a 
 kangaroo into a great number of pieces, which, turning into kangaroos, 
 filled the land. At the request of his daughter Karakarock, he told 
 Gerer the sun to warm, and immediately the earth opened like a
 
 81 
 
 door. At this burst of light, "plenty Blackfellow jump up, sing 
 all the same Whitefellow." The said young lady was once walking 
 upon this dull earth with a stick in her hand to kill snakes ; giving 
 a sharper blow than usual, the stick broke, and flame issued. 
 This was the origin of fire. Mr. Hull also refers to the Yarra 
 tribe giving names to two stars of Orion, and styling them father 
 and mother. They believed the moon to be the husband of the 
 sun, like our own ancestors the Anglo Saxons. 
 
 However disposed to be amused at the silly fancies of our rude 
 natives, if we look at the popular belief of Christianized English- 
 men in the Norman era, the laugh may be on the other side. 
 Grave men wrote Latin treatises, in which appeared such refined 
 ideas as, that the world was flat, and 12,000 miles long by 6,000 
 broad ; that the sun was red in the morning, because of the 
 reflection of the fires of hell ; that there were women near Babylon 
 with long beards ; that somewhere in Africa men carried their eyes 
 in their breasts ; that pepper was black from the fires of forests to 
 drive away the serpents ; and that in India gigantic ants dug gold, 
 and sold it to merchants for young camels to eat. Even in the 
 days of Shakespeare we have a learned man writing to disprove the 
 Englishman's notion, that bears licked their cubs into shape ; that 
 elephants slept leaning against trees ; that diamonds were softened 
 by the blood of goats ; that griffins existed ; that moles had no 
 eyes ; that cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg grew on the same 
 tree ; and that the Basil insect propagated scorpions in the brains 
 of man. The Royal Society of London wrote to a doctor in Java, 
 to know if it were true that there was a tree near Sumatra that 
 sank into the earth at a touch, that had a worm at its root, and that 
 when dry, changed into stone. 
 
 DISEASES. 
 
 Upon the first visit of the Whites, the natives of Port Phillip 
 were found to be a healthy, happy race excepting upon the Murray, 
 where Sturt observed the dreaded plague for vice. Proximity to 
 tribes acquainted with the older settlement of New Soutli \Yales f 
 may readily account for the appearance of the Europeans' blight
 
 82 
 
 upon that river. Alas ! who is competent to describe the miseries 
 following the introduction of that disease? Tribe after tribe 
 disappears ; men are enfeebled and degraded, seeking in drink a 
 relief to their sufferings and self upbraidings ; women are debased, 
 wretched, barren ; and as to the few children, Mr. Protector 
 Thomas writes, " I have known helpless infants brought into the 
 world literally rotten with this disease." Never shall we forget 
 our sorrowful impressions at the spectacle of a Murray Aborigine 
 dying from this loathesome complaint. 
 
 The introduction of drink among them has been the active agency 
 of their physical as well as moral decline. What avail the legisla- 
 ture passing enactments that the person who gave the liquor should 
 be fined, or that the publican lose his license, when such a thing as 
 conviction was never heard of? When a native is intoxicated, he 
 lies down, it may be, upon some damp and exposed situation, with 
 an inflamed body ; the consequence is, that pulmonary complaints 
 are engendered. Doubtless, the practise of a partial civilization 
 induces much disease. A man dresses for a while in warm garments, 
 partakes of our food, and sleeps in a comfortable hut ; after a 
 time he goes again into the bush with his blanket, his grubs, and 
 his open raia mia. A serious epidemic appears to have raged before 
 Batman came in 1835. Diseases are regarded in some shadowy 
 way to be connected with the illdoings of divers fairies, brownies or 
 the like. But these are vague and impressionless ideas ; else we 
 should see them like others supplicate the spirits whose malignity 
 they feared. 
 
 They have cures for many complaints which exhibit no small 
 intelligence in the much despised Aborigines. Rheumatisms are 
 relieved by shampooing, and inflamations by bleeding and by cold 
 water applications ; no female is bled. Wounds are covered with 
 a plaster of mud and ashes. Flesh wounds heal with rapidity under 
 their simple treatment. Dysentery is attacked by fomentations of 
 the leaves of the native currant and other plants. Splints and 
 bandages are employed in accidents. Venereal ulcers are sprinkled 
 with alkaline wood ashes. For certain disorders the excrements of 
 animals are rubbed over the head. Their doctors are old, 
 experienced men, though not of the importance of the Indian
 
 83 
 
 Medicine men. They have an odd fashion of relieving pain by 
 sucking out from the part affected a piece of wood or bone, the 
 cause of the suffering, and which is always exhibited to the patient ; 
 the charlatanism of some modern quacks is about as clumsy as 
 this, but often equally efficacious upon believing minds. A 
 description is given of the operation of the native physician upon 
 an ague subject, which is interesting and suggestive. The woman 
 was stripped of her blanket, and carried by two men to and fro 
 over a fire. Then the doctor put a string round her waist, and 
 holding the ends, gently pulled her toward him, repeating a charm. 
 He then gazed earnestly in her face, catching her eye, still uttering 
 a charm, to produce a magnetic influence. Going up to her, he 
 began to employ friction on her body. Others came, and joined in 
 the universal shampooing. Then catching her up, they rolled her 
 in rugs, laid her before the fire, and left her to an undisturbed 
 repose. 
 
 DEATH AND BUKIAL. 
 
 We have on more than one occasion been present at the death of 
 Australian Aborigines. Mingled with natural and genuine sorrow, 
 there was some of the artificed character, as in the hired mourners 
 of the Jews, &c., and the black craped concern of more modern 
 days. We have witnessed a party of women thus sitting to mourn. 
 With their heads shaven, like the American Indians, with pipe clay 
 on their faces, and a weighty mass of that material on their heads, 
 they leaned over one another, and expressed their feelings in a low 
 musical chant, in deep spasmodic sobs, and in abundant crying ; 
 the tears making their way through the plaster, produced a ludicrous 
 appearance of the face. Unprovided with civilized handkerchiefs, 
 the ladies would relieve their features from the effects of natural 
 discharges at the weeping season, by appliances in the shape of 
 stick or stones. Now and then they would take breath, resume 
 their cheerfulness, have a chat and laugh, then compose their coun- 
 tenance, wail once more, and fall to at tear shedding. Occasionally 
 the real sorrowers would throw hot ashes on their heads, scratch 
 their faces, and otherwise draw blood. Th men would cut their
 
 84 
 
 beards, and put white paint upon their breasts. The camp was 
 deserted upon a death. It is the practise never to allude, in any 
 way, to the deceased one, nor mention his name. This has been 
 foolishly set down to a want of feeling ; it is rather a proof of deep 
 feeling. We were present when a friend asked a woman after a 
 certain person, not knowing that he was dead. The lubra laid her 
 hand upon his arm, looked kindly in his face, and said in a plain- 
 tivt-ly reproachful tone, " Speak plenty low ; no you say the like of 
 that ; Blackfellow plenty growl." When instances are related of 
 mothers carrying about with them the remains of some beloved 
 child, we may be sure that the natural affections at this time of 
 sorrow are in full exercise with them as with us. 
 
 The forms of their burials varied according to circumstances and 
 the tribe. When the ground was soft, the body was interred in a 
 hole dug with sticks. Sometimes it was burnt, and the ashes 
 preserved. On the Lower Murray it was placed on a wooden stage, 
 and exposed after the fashion of the Parsees of India, and the Red 
 Indians of Canada West. Some, again, thrust their relatives in a 
 hollow tree or a wombat hole, or bound them among the branches. 
 We were present at the funeral obsequies of a Murray visitor on the 
 banks of the Torrens. The body was placed in a sitting position, 
 after the manner of all the Indian tribes from Canada to Patagonia. 
 The women remained to weep. The men, adorned with pipe clay, 
 hurried their corpse to the sepulchre they had prepared. The tomb 
 was not above four feet deep ; branches of trees and old clothes were 
 laid on the mound, and small fires made round about. A grand 
 corrobory took place in the evening. Some speak of the Murray 
 tribes extracting the entrails, and filling their place with green 
 leaves. Upon examination of the caul fat, the evil work of a 
 sorcerer was known by the appearance of a scar. Many of their 
 graves are bounded by well cut trenches, after the fashion of the 
 ancient Etruscans, to drain off the rain. Occasionally tents are 
 constructed over the graves to preserve them from falling sliowers. 
 We have seldom been so deeply interested as upon the occasion of 
 a visit to the burial place of a tribe allied to the Murray natives, but 
 at a distance of forty miles from the banks of the river. There 
 were eight or nine rude edifices of reeds and brushwood, eight or
 
 85 
 
 ten feet high, held together by several circuits of native twine. 
 Under each dome were two or more grave mounds, covered with old 
 rags, leaves, &c. There were walks between and around these 
 mausoleums, which were kept clean by the tribe. Around the 
 whole was an enclosure of sticks, plaited reeds, worn out garments, 
 and string, to keep the cattle from intruding upon this cemetery. 
 Mr. Hinkins relates a singular feature in the customs of the middle 
 Murray tribes. A man had died while a number of his friends 
 were absent on a hunting expedition. Upon their return, and 
 hearing of the loss, they immediately attacked those who had 
 remained behind, for no other reason than that they had let the man 
 die while they were away. 
 
 LANGUAGE. 
 
 Humboldt has declared that " Language is the outward appear- 
 ance of the intellect of nations." If so, the philosopher would 
 not be disposed to place the Australians low in the order of humanity 
 Their language is rich in material, good in analogy and uniform in 
 etymological structure. We pause not to enquire into the 
 philological enigma ; for, as says the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, 
 " The Goths, the Saxons, the Greeks, the Latins, (and we would 
 add, the Australians) in forming the schemes of conjugation were 
 probably impelled by principles in the human mind, the very 
 existence of which they hardly suspected." Mr. Ex Protector 
 Parker remarks upon the number and variety of combinations, 
 " slight variations in the affixes expressed important differences of 
 meaning." There are many dialects among our Blacks. But this 
 is readily explained by the unsocial nature of a hunter's life ; his 
 country is mapped out into detached territories for the sake of 
 procuring a living, as among the American Indians, &c. In 
 proportion to the consolidation of a people, so is the diminution of 
 these dialects. Thus, in Timor there are forty ; in savage Borneo, 
 many hundreds ; in Celebes, four ; and in populous Java two 
 dialects. Mr. Ex Protector Dredge wrote in 1841, "Tribes 
 separated from each other by comparatively limited spaces, scarcely 
 retain the means of common conversational intercourse." Again,
 
 86 
 
 the custom of never repeating the name of a deceased friend, which 
 may be the appellation of some common object, necessitates the 
 creation of new forms of expression. Mr. Moorhouse, the 
 excellent Protector of Aborigines in South Australia, thus sums up 
 the points of grammatical similarity among the Australian dialects : 
 " They have suffixes, or particles, added to the terminal parts of 
 words, to express relation ; dual forms of substantives, adjectives 
 and pronouns ; limited terms, being only five, for time, distance, 
 and number ; no sibilant, or hissing sounds ; no articles ; no 
 auxiliary verb ; no relative pronoun ; no prepositions ; no distinc- 
 tions in gender ; no distinct form of the verb to express the 
 passive voice." 
 
 Almost all words end in vowels. There are five vowels, and 
 sixteen consonants. There is a want of the c. f. j. s. x. or z. 
 The persons and cases of nouns are expressed by inflexions at the 
 end, formed by combining the pronoun with the word. Thus, 
 according to Mr. Parker, we have Lar, house ; lar-knak, ray 
 house ; lar-kneu, your house ; lar-knook, his or her house ; lar- 
 knak-e, in my house ; lar-ye-knak, at my house. The following 
 from the Murray dialect, will show the declension of nouns : 
 
 Nominative. 
 
 Meru, man Merakul, the two men Mera, men 
 
 Active Nominative. 
 
 Merinnanna 
 Merining 
 
 Merininnanno 
 Meru 
 
 Merinni, with 
 Merinnainmudl, 
 from 
 
 Genitive. 
 Merinnimakul 
 
 Dative. 
 Merinnakullamanno 
 
 Accusative. 
 Merakul 
 
 Ablative. 
 
 M erinnakullamanno 
 
 Merinnarango 
 
 Merinnaramanno 
 
 Mera 
 
 Merinnaramanno 
 
 Merinuakullamammudl Merinnaramainmudl 
 The adjective is thus compared on our northern boundary : 
 tvorpippi, great ; worpippinni, greater. The verbs are inflected 
 by the prefixed pronoun. Thus, Ngape terrin, I stand ; ngurru 
 /errin, thou standest ; ninni terrin, he stands. The Chinese have
 
 BJf 
 
 similarly, Ngo Xgai, I love ; Ni Ngai, thou lovest ; Ta Ngai, he 
 loves. Among the Murray pronouns are Ngape, I ; Ngurru, thou ; 
 Ngedlu, we two; Ngupul, you two; Ngennu, we ; .\gunnu, you ; 
 Ninni, he. Postfixes are employed for prepositions : thui, 
 ityarnungko, from ; taiapparnalityarnungko, from lips. 
 
 ORIGIN OF OUR NATIVES. 
 
 Consulting with Simon, the son of Jagga Jagga the friend of 
 Batman, upon this abstruse subject, we obtained the following 
 opinion : " Blackfellow always this country. No like whitefellovr 
 walk plenty, go new country." Mr. Moorhouse of Adelaide has a 
 philological theory of their origin. Observing the singular unifor- 
 mity of terms in various dialects for the two first persons, he 
 supposes a party landing in North Australia, and separating in 
 pairs. But it is very remarkable, that while the tribes of North 
 and South Australia practise circumcision, those of Port Phillip and 
 Eastern Australia are ignorant of the rite. 
 
 Certain caves have been discovered in various parts of the coast, 
 on the walls of which remarkable figures are drawn. Flinders, 
 King, and Grey saw these in North Australia. At Ryalstone, New 
 South Wales, 40 miles from Mudgee, is a cave with the bottom 
 paved. Among other impressions are those of a number of red 
 hands ; some with the fore finger cut off, others crossing one 
 another. In one cave Grey found figures with red garments down 
 to the ancles, and a sort of glory round their heads. Others have 
 coloured bandages round their heads. Some women, also, are de- 
 picted with eyes but no mouths ; one has a blue head dress. 
 Among the tribes of ancient Egypt and the monuments of the 
 ancient Peruvians and Mexicans the red cap and red hand are 
 common, and evidently refer to some universally spread mystery 
 some lost freemasonry. With these sketches are those of kanga- 
 roos, snakes, fish, &c. At Cape Schank, Western Port, and at 
 Cape Bridge water, west of Portland, similar caves of ochre draw- 
 ings are to be seen. All these indicate a different sort of people
 
 88 
 
 existing, unless the present race be a degenerate 
 ring of the others. 
 
 There is no record of a people raising themselves from barbarism ; 
 but isolation and removal from civilizing agencies, will soon reduce 
 a community to a low condition of mind. Dr. Beke informs us, 
 that, " The culture or degradation of our aboriginal race will be in 
 proportion to the geographical distance of its residence from the 
 common centre of its .dispersion." If so, our dark friends must 
 have come a long way from home. Philological affinities have 
 been noticed between the Australian dialects and those of both 
 Chinese and Malays. There is little doubt that our Aborigines 
 crossed the sea of Torres Strait, as the neighbouring islanders have 
 similar appearance, and customs, with our aborigines. 
 
 CONFLICTS OF WHITES AND BLACKS. 
 
 With their jealousy at the least intrusion upon their hunting 
 grounds by a neighbouring tribe, we cannot believe the Port Phillip 
 Blacks regarded our coming with complacency, and the occupation 
 of their country by our flocks with satisfaction. The truth is, 
 their conduct towards us in our weakness was most generous and 
 praiseworthy. And although isolated instances of ruthless attack 
 occurred at an early period, with no obviously apparent causes for 
 such, yet we should be cautious of condemning a people with whose 
 language and motives we were then so ignorant, particularly with 
 the knowledge of highly exciting reasons of complaint on other 
 occasions. Mr. Eyre, late Lieutenant-Govern or of New Zealand, 
 and an able authority upon any question respecting the Aborigines 
 of New Holland, has well observed, " Our being in their country at 
 all is, so far as their ideas of right and wrong are concerned, alto- 
 gether an act of intrusion and aggression." 
 
 The conflicts between the Whites and Blacks of Port Phillip, 
 have not been so bloody and constant as in the neighbouring colony 
 of Tasmania. Our natives were a gentler race than the curly- 
 hended Islanders. Still a sad tale is to be told of aggressions and 
 murders in the olden times. If the settlers can tell of stolen sheep
 
 89 
 
 and slaughtered shepherds, the natives can also rehearse a tale of 
 seduction and murder. Mr. Protector Robinson assures us that 
 " Nine-tenths of the mischief charged to the Aborigines is the 
 result of the white man's interference with the native women." 
 The first murder by the Aborigines of Port Phillip had its origin 
 in this cause, interference with their females. Two shepherds 
 belonging to the Port Phillip Association, had been sent down in 
 the early part of 1836, to Mr. Batman's first station on Indented 
 Head. They were murdered upon their return. One of them had 
 been wounded by the natives of Van Diemen's Land, and bore a 
 deadly hatred against all Blacks. Another shepherd about tins 
 time bound a native girl to a tree to secure her while he was away 
 with his flock. Contriving to escape, the poor thing fled to Buckley 
 for protection. Hejtold Mr. GellibranJ, who immediately sent the 
 rough rascal back to Van Diemen's Land. 
 
 The next attack was an unaccountable one. Mr. Franks, for- 
 merly of Green Ponds', in Tasmania, had settled near Mr. Cotterill. 
 Always kind to the Aborigines, he had no fear of aggression. Some 
 callers at the homestead discovered the gentleman and James Smith, 
 his overseer, lying quite dead, and the premises rifled of their con- 
 tents. According to Mr. Connell, four gentlemeu accompanied Mr. 
 Gellibrand to ascertain the truth of the report. The remains of 
 the men were brought to town and interred on Burial Hill, the little 
 enclosure near the Flagstaff. An organised party under Dr. Cotter, 
 with Billiang and some of Batman's Sydney natives, set off in hos- 
 tile pursuit. They soon came on to the track of the murderers. 
 They approached a place where a lubra's grub stick was picked up 
 and recognised. The end of the story will be best told in the words 
 of Old Goslyn, the octagenarian, "Th'ey let fly at them, killed a 
 a great many, and what was not killed and wounded ran away, 
 leaving all behind them ; a dray was loaded with what they had 
 carried away, and their spears and waddies and tomahawks." 
 
 The natives were not without their tales of wrongs. The follow- 
 ing quotation from the Sydney Government Gazette, confirms this 
 statement: "Whereas, it has come to the knowledge of the 
 Government, that on the night of the 23rd of Ftbrua: 
 party of six or more armed Europeans, surprised a number of
 
 90 
 
 Aboriginal Natives, sleeping in a tea tree scrub, in the immediate 
 vicinity of the station of Messrs. Smith & Osbry, in the Portland 
 Bay district ; and then and there barbarously murdered three 
 aboriginal females and one male child, by gun or pistol shots, be- 
 sides wounding a fourth female. It is hereby notified," &c. 
 Many of the Stock -keepers and Shepherds were from Van Diemen's 
 Land, and had, in many cases, shed the blood of the poor Tasma- 
 nians. They were not indisposed to regard the shooting of all 
 Blackfellows as pleasant and proper sport. The late Protector, 
 Mr. Dredge, thus records an atrocity : " To one has been given 
 the carcase of a dead lamb, which he forthwith proceeds to roast 
 for himself and his two lubras ; while the operation is going on, 
 be seats himself by the fire with one of his women, while the 
 donor sits opposite with the musket in his hand ; in an unsuspect- 
 ing moment he shoots the black man, and with the butt end of his 
 piece knocks out the brains of the woman and the helpless infant 
 at her breast. The other woman, gathering firewood at a little dis- 
 tance, escapes by flight. The bodies of the others are then burnt 
 to prevent detection." According to Mr. Parker, in July 1838, 
 Mr. Bowman's party of the Pyrenees were said to have killed 
 fourteen persons. Bowman's servants were tried for burning the 
 bodies of the slain, to conceal their cruelty ; they were acquitted 
 for want of white evidence. 
 
 Robberies of sheep were common enough in remote districts. 
 The natives doubtless believed that they had a right to a few of the 
 white man's woolly kangaroo that fed on their pastures, and de- 
 stroyed their roots. A favourite place of retreat on these forays 
 was the celebrated basaltic Stony Rises. The dogs of the Natives 
 were destructive to the flocks. Dr. Thomson acted wisely when 
 he went to Geelong harbour in 1837. He got Buckley to gather the 
 tribe to receive beef and blankets, and explain his intention to act 
 well to them, if they would do so to him. The result was, that he 
 never suffered molestation or loss. It was far different elsewhere. 
 The settlers were in constant and harassing fear. The lordly and 
 luxuriant Squatters of the present day endured years of privation, 
 anxiety, and suffering to maintain their ground, and open up a 
 country to succeeding generations. Whole flocks were carried off,
 
 91 
 
 out-stations robbed of stores, shepherds speared, and servants so 
 frightened as to be unable to discharge their duties. The Squat- 
 ters in their meetings condemned the Protectorate, and recom- 
 mended the establishment of Land Reserves and Provision Depots 
 for the Blacks, and the formation of Missions among them. The 
 Government was feeble and distant, and Gazette proclamations were 
 ill supported by Police arrangements, for protection either for 
 Blacks or Whites. 
 
 But the times are changed. We are the many ; they are the 
 few. We have remorselessly occupied the whole of their territory, 
 and they wander as intruders and strangers. 
 
 NATIVE RIGHTS AND BRITISH RULE. 
 
 The Aborigines were held by our government to have no pro- 
 prietorship in the soil ; and yet, Mr. Eyre writes, "Each male 
 has some portion of land of which he can point out the boundaries. 
 A female never inherits." Governor Gawler, speaking of the land, 
 says, " over which these Aborigines have exercised distinct, 
 defined and absolute right of proprietary and hereditary possession." 
 Dr. Lang adds, " Particular sections and portions of these districts 
 are universally recognized by the natives as the property of 
 the individual members of these tribes." Mr. Protector Parker 
 asserts, " Every family had its own locality." Dr. Thomson told 
 the Sydney Council, that the native " considers the land as his own : 
 indeed every family had its separate portion." 
 
 The anomalous condition of the Blacks under our rule is thus 
 described by Count Strzelecki. "The late act declaring them 
 naturalized as British subjects, has not only rendered them legally 
 amenable to the English criminal law, but 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 
 white nor black." The New South Wales legislature passed a law
 
 in 1839 to admit native evidence; but this was disallowed by the 
 home authorities ; in 1844, the council were opposed to the 
 admission. Mr. Protector Robinson has properly observed, "The 
 legal disabilities of the Aborigines have been a serious obstacle to 
 their protection and civilization." At the trial of Bon Jon in 
 1841, for murdering another native, the Judge exclaimed, " Can I 
 legally exercise my jurisdiction with reference to any crime 
 committed by the Aborigines against each other? Mr. Barry, now 
 one of our judges, contended that the Crown had no power to limit 
 authority of natives to decide among themselves. Mr. Croke 
 asserted that the Sydney judges considered the natives to be amen- 
 able to the laws brought out by the colonists. Judge Willis 
 decided, " There is no express law which makes Aborigines subject 
 to our colonial code." 
 
 PROTECTORS AND NATIVE POLICE. 
 
 The investigations of a House of Commons' Committee upon the 
 Aborigines originated the formation of the Port Phillip Protectorate 
 of the Aborigines. The benevolent Lord Glenelg, then Secretary 
 of the Colonies, announced this institution to Governor Gipps on 
 January 31, 1838. Mr. George Robinson, who had been so suc- 
 cessful in gathering in the remnant of the hunted Tasmanians, was 
 appointed Chief Protector, at a salary of 500 a-ycar. Originally 
 a mechanic of Hobart Town, with little education, but great 
 benevolence and pious zeal, he had lived much with the Blacks, 
 learned their language, gained their confidence, and so conciliated 
 the infuriated and decimated tribes. His Assistants in the Protec- 
 torate were the following persons, sent from England ; Messrs. 
 Sievwright, Dredge, Thomas and Parker. Mr. Le Soeuf was 
 afterwards nominated Assistant Protector. These received 250 
 salary, and 10s. 6d. a-day for expenses. 
 
 From the first, nothing but disappointment and dissatisfaction 
 attended the course of these gentlemen. The colonists as a mass 
 violently opposed to their proceedings, and the government
 
 93 
 
 afforded them little sympathy ; but there can be no doubt that Jhough 
 the natives made no further progress in civilization, they were at 
 least preserved from the violence of cruel men, and the property of 
 the squatter became safer. 
 
 The employment of the natives for Police was first suggested by 
 Captain Lonsdale, who in 1836 recommended Captain Machonochie's 
 plan. A corps was formed in 1839, under a gentleman named 
 Villiers. The discipline was bad, the leader was dismissed, and 
 his men bolted to the bush. Captain Dana had 24 natives under 
 his command in 1842, in a thorough soldier-like condition. Half 
 the expenses of this establishment came out of the Aboriginal 
 fund ; the cost in four years was 55,000. Many saw with 
 apprehension the arming of one portion of natives against the 
 others, knowing how the deadly animosity and revenge of a tribe 
 may thus be gratified under the shelter of the law. Thus we read 
 of one charge of theirs upon a tribe for the murder of a native girl, 
 "It is probable that the murdered child was revenged 17 to 1 ; for 
 a native policeman counted upon his fingers by the evening fire the 
 number each of them had killed, and they amounted to 17." 
 
 SKETCHES OF NATIVE CHARACTER. 
 
 The man Weatherly, of the earliest days of the colony, 
 was one of five brothers. He had two wives, Big Mary and 
 Eliza. The three managed to live on most friendly terms. But 
 Mary, <>r Mrs. Weatherly, as she preferred being called, was an 
 excellent washerwoman. Her husband for a long period worked 
 1. i Mr. Overtoil in Melbourne, and was duly paid for his labor. 
 The man was of a mild, affectionate disposition, at all times a 
 favorite with Whites and Blacks. Happening one day to sit down 
 lie hole of a snake, on the site of the South Yarra Barracks, 
 he received a bite, which occasioned his death in a few hours. 
 
 Doutta Galla was the wife of the youngest of the celel 
 Jagga Jagga brothers. Her pretty little child was named Lucy by 
 Mr. Batman, after a fair daughter of his own. She was 
 powerful frame, masculine spirit, and hasty temper. Merri
 
 94 
 
 Denninook, an old chieftain with four wives, was a great friend of 
 the Whites in their hour of weakness. Captain Benbow, of a 
 peculiarly mild and pleasing expression, was also a noble apologist 
 and defender of his European acquaintance. 
 
 Some dozen years ago there was a great outcry about a White 
 woman being seen captive with a Gipps Land tribe. By stratagem 
 the chieftain was seized and brought to Melbourne, in hopes of 
 getting information from him. Confined in goal, Bungulene soon 
 became sick and died. His widow and two sons were removed to 
 the Baptist Mission on Merri Creek. There, after a time, the lady 
 was married again, and that in due Christian form, by the Rev. W. 
 Ramsey. When the school was broken up, the children were 
 transferred to the care of Mr. Hinkins of Moonie Ponds, with 
 whom one of them may be still seen. 
 
 We had an interesting account from Donald Kennedy, Esq., 
 M.L.C., of an old man of a tribe near his station. Claiming the 
 honours of chieftainship, he was regularly supplied with rations, 
 and appointed to occasional honorable employments about the place. 
 He was particularly exemplary in his conduct, and scrupulously 
 attentive to the interests of the master ; any irregularities observed 
 in the behaviour of the servants were in the most dignified manner 
 reported to head quarters. Esteeming himself something better 
 than common Blackfellow, he never bemeaned himself by drinking 
 with the men of the establishment in their hut ; though he was 
 not indifferent to a glass, provided it was handed to him by Mr. 
 Kennedy in the house, so that he might drink "like a gentleman." 
 His wife was a clean, orderly, good soul, remarkably solicitous to 
 keep her husband in proper trim, as he never presumed to go up to 
 the house until he had changed his dress, shaved himself, and put 
 on a clean shirt. When Mary had finished her morning work, she 
 would clap on her best gown, and walk up to sit with her mistress 
 in the parlour. When the worthy Mayor of Geelong, Dr. Thomson, 
 sojourned on the site of the second Metropolis of the West, his 
 lady received a visit from a fine looking native woman. Thinking 
 to improve her appearance by the gift of a gay gown and cap, Mrs. 
 Thomson found the clothing added no new charm. A day or two
 
 after, the lubra renewed her call, but in her former garb of opossum 
 skin. Strange to say, however, her old man appeared at the door 
 with the said dress dangling about his legs, and his bushy, black 
 beard obtruding among the frills of the muslin head gear. 
 
 CIVILIZATION AND DECLINE. 
 
 We have a sad story to tell when we speak of the effect of our 
 so-called civilization upon the aborigines. Mr. Westgarth truly 
 remarked, " They have neither the desire nor the capacity to asso- 
 ciate with the Whites." Even if able and willing to be influenced 
 by our civilization, is it generally believed that they would have 
 become either happier or more moral ? Mr. Threlkeld may well 
 tell us, " The frightful mortality among them weighed down the 
 spirit of the Wesleyan Missionaries of Port Phillip." By the time 
 the youth and adult were taught to read, the scroll of eternity was 
 unrolled before them. We taught them to handle the spade, but it 
 was to dig their graves. Count Strzlecki declares them to be 
 " Spectres of the past." To adopt our habits, they must be entirely 
 removed from the associations of the Mia Mia. And what have 
 we to offer in exchange for endearing relations, joyous freedom, 
 and unanxious existence ? The man is thrust upon a competition 
 society to earn his bread. He is exposed to the gibes and con- 
 tempt of the lowest of our countrymen. He is without sympathy 
 and friends. He is herded with men from whom he learns the 
 most obviously developed principles of European civilization, 
 swearing and drinking. It is true he eats better food, wears better 
 clothing, sleeps in better dwellings. But where is his home ? 
 Who will be his mother, his sister, his brother ? Who will ally 
 herself as wife to his dark skin ? Can he ever know the sweet- 
 ness of a child's love ? No ! he soon tires of our work, our food, 
 our confined habitations, our heartless ridicule ; and hastens back 
 to his camp fire to find a friend, to feel himself a man, to il\vc-ll 
 with those who can love him.
 
 96 
 
 The decline of this unfortunate race is a mournfully interesting 
 fact. We have no record of their numbers upon the arrival of the 
 Whites ; but of the many thousands not two thousand sun 
 most of which are on the Murray. Other tribes have almost 
 wholly disappeared. It is no satisfaction to be told by Pritchard, 
 the ethnologist, that " It may happen that in the course of another 
 century, the aboriginal natives of most parts of the world will 
 have ceased entirely to exist." In 1845, our Colonial Council 
 appointed a Committee to enquire into the causes of the decline of 
 our Aboriginal population. Among those examined was old Mah- 
 root, the last man of the Port Jackson tribe. His answer was 
 this " Because they knock about like the deuce in liquor, and no 
 children because they go with a good many white men." A volume 
 could not give a better reply. 
 
 One evening, when visiting the Ballaarat Gold Fields, some three 
 or four years ago, we saw a party of natives plied with drink by 
 Englishmen, until their bestial manners and coarse speech excited 
 the brutal mirth of their cruel tempters. Throughout the night 
 the Bush was disturbed with the mad yells and quarrels of the poor 
 creatures. Early in the morning we rose to ascertain the cause of 
 moaning at no great distance. To our horror, there lay before us 
 a wretched man in the mud, with nothing upon him but a shirt, 
 thoroughly drenched with a night of cold wintry rain. While his 
 limbs shook with the inclemency of the weather, his brow was wet 
 with the sweat of agony. In answer to questions, he groaned out, 
 " Me killed Long Tom did it him drunk him stab me knife." 
 Lifting his shirt, we beheld a large gash in his side, out of which 
 part of his bowels were protruding, and mingling with the grit of 
 the muddy soil. The Doctor arrived, and pronounced the case 
 hopeless the poor fellow, must die. Christian men of Victoria ! 
 who was the murderer ? 
 
 Why should the Black race pass away ? There was no apparent 
 diminution of physical force, moral power, mental activity. The 
 signs of their decrepitude suddenly fall upon them as the curtain 
 of night in the Tropics. With diseased frames, with hopeless 
 feelings, homeless and childless, the present generation will soon
 
 glide away from us. Like the leaves of an English autumn, they 
 wither and fall ; hut, alas ! there is no Spring for them. The 
 Sheoak hangs its mournful, weird-like appendages over their 
 tombs ; and on its knotted, leafless strings, the passing breezes 
 play their solemn requium.
 
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