Several praiseworthy individuals have from time to time endeavoured to educate and civilize young boys of this unhappy race. One was sent to England, where he was kept at school till he was fifteen years of age; and he then returned to his native country. He had not been two days on shore in Sydney, when, meeting with some of his countrymen, he threw off his European clothing, and started for the bush, whence there was no getting him back.
Like most savages, the natives are seldom if ever known to express surprise or astonishment under any circumstances. Shortly before leaving the Colony, I saw a native, early in the morning, standing on one of the heights overlooking the harbour of Sydney. On my asking what he was about, his reply was: "I belong big river (300 miles distant); first time come Sydney; come here see ship; budgerie su (pleasant sight); never see ship or salt water before." This poor savage had come three hundred miles on foot, assisting a drover with a herd of cattle; he had never before seen either the sea or a ship in his life; and yet there he stood, looking at these, to him, most extraordinary objects, with a countenance as placid and unmoved as if they had been daily sights from his infancy. On questioning him, I could extract nothing further from him: he would not allow that he was astonished, but simply repeated, "budgerie su." While idling away an hour one day in the criminal court, I saw an aboriginal black tried for murder. Nothing could exceed the perfect indifference that he exhibited throughout the whole scene. When called upon, through an interpreter, to plead guilty or not guilty, his reply was: "I did it because he (the deceased) stole my wife." He would not condescend to deny an act which he considered himself justified in committing. This plea of justification, the learned Judge directed to be taken as one of not guilty; and the result was, the prisoner's acquittal.
Sir F. L. Mitchell, the Surveyor-General of New South Wales, in his admirable journal of his three celebrated expeditions into the interior of Australia, has described the aboriginal inhabitants of that portion of the country named by him, "Australia Felix," as a race of men altogether superior to those found in other parts of this continent. This race may, and probably will be found formidable neighbours for the first settlers to encounter. Their country, from the description given by its discoverer, must be a very fine one; and should it prove to be regularly refreshed by rain, it will be an invaluable addition to the Colony.
The fate of the tribes I have been endeavouring to describe, is a melancholy one: they are fast disappearing from the face of the earth; and one or two more generations will, in all human probability, see the last of them.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] The name given to the aborigines in Australia.
[18] It is a singular fact, that the aboriginal natives of New South Wales, as well as the cattle that roam at large in its woods, invariably choose the top of a moderately elevated hill to sleep on during the winter months. The reason is, that the hills are always warmer than the valleys, and are consequently resorted to in winter; while the latter are chosen in summer as camping-ground by man and beast. I have often been surprised, when riding about the bush in winter, at feeling a current of warm air on the top of a range of hills, having myself just ascended from the neighbouring valley where the breeze was chilling. These warm breezes on the hill tops blow from the north-west, and may be nearly related to the summer hot winds, cooled on reaching the latitude of 34° in the winter season. Be that as it may, they are not strong enough to warm the valleys, though their influence on the hills is very agreeable to the traveller.