as the black race of Australia.
Those we were now visiting had come from the districts of Shoal Haven, Port Stephens, and Illawara. There were three men and as many women, one of whom, a Mestiza, named Sarah, with two half-blood little children. One of these, which, although above two years of age, was still at the breast, had a skin quite white, red cheeks, and light-blue eyes, and could scarcely be distinguished from the child of white parents. These presented so characteristic a type of the race, that we could not resist an attempt to make with them some of those admeasurements of the body already alluded to, while the artist attached to the Expedition delineated their appearance.
The skull of the Australian black is tolerably regular, the forehead broad and high, the bridge of the nose pretty high, the eyes dark, brilliant, and sunken; the nose and cheek-bones well marked. The mouth generally is broad, the upper lip overhanging the under, and the upper teeth also project beyond the under. The face, like the entire body, is hairy in an unusual degree; the hair of the head is black, thin, often very fine in texture, and slightly crisped without being woolly. The skin is usually dark or dirty brown, or brownish black. The custom of marking the outer arm from
the shoulders downwards with three or four marks, from 1 to 1 1⁄2 inch long, and rather thick in the cicatrix, and continuing over the back with similar incisions, is pretty universal, and seems to be considered as a personal decoration. The elder people have the nasal cartilage bored through, and wear in the orifice kangaroo bones, or other bones, or even pieces of wood as amulets. We did not however remark this among the younger generation; this hideous custom seems to have died out, apparently on account of its discomfort.
The stay of the Novara in Australia was, as already remarked, so brief, that it did not admit of the scientific staff making more distant tours to the great cattle "stations," or gold districts. At the same time it appears to us important to make some few observations on these two products, to which Australia is indebted for her present prosperity, and the former of which is fraught with even more of its future destiny than the latter. At the commencement of the present century England used to procure all her wool from Spain, and somewhat later from Germany[21] and Hungary. Since that period the production of wool in the Cape, the East Indies, and Australia, has so enormously increased, that Great Britain is enabled to get from her colonies the entire consumption she requires for her woollen manufactures, averaging from 60 to 70,000,000 lbs., thus utilizing the agricultural
energies of her emigrating children for the behoof of the mother country and her industrial classes.
New South Wales produces at present (1858) above 17,000,000 lbs. of wool, the whole of Australia about 50,000,000. The number of sheep has increased from 29, imported by the first colonists in 1778,[22] to 8,139,160 in New South Wales alone, the total for all Australia being about 15,000,000. Some proprietors have upwards of 100,000 sheep, which they divide into flocks of from 2000 to 3000, which are in charge each of its respective shepherd, who keeps them in their own special "runs."
The most suitable place for breeding sheep is Moreton Bay, lately raised into a new independent colony by the name of Queen's Land. The sheep there need but little attention, and the maladies to which they are subject in the west and south never occur in that colony. Were it not for the
ravages of the wild dogs, the rearing of sheep would be attended with hardly any expense. These are pastured on the crown lands, for the use of which each squatter pays £10 per annum for every 4000 sheep, or 800 head of cattle. In the north, "Darling Downs" are considered the best, consisting of an open undulating table-land, broken here and there by occasional clumps of trees, and much resembling the States of Minnesota and Iowa, north and west of the Mississippi. On these Downs from 3000 to 4000 sheep can easily be kept by a single shepherd, whereas in Bathurst 800 would call into play all the watchfulness of a single individual. On Darling Downs the annual increase of a flock of 100 ewes is 96 per cent.; in Bathurst it is only 80. The value of a sheep is about 15s. to 20s., and the shearing usually begins in October and lasts till December, the average weight being 2 1⁄2 lbs. to the fleece. Innumerable teams of oxen carry the wool in bales of 200 or 300 lbs. from hundreds of miles in the interior down to the seaports, where the oxen and carts are usually sold, as, owing to the low price of cattle, it would not be remunerative to take them back without a freight. While we were in Australia an attempt had been made, at much cost of time, trouble, and expense, to import from their native Cordilleras a large number of Llamas or Alpacas, with the view of increasing the value of Australian wool by a cross with the Peruvian. An enterprising English merchant of Valparaiso, named Joshua Waddington, who had been 40 years resident
in Chili, was a chief promoter of the undertaking. In 1852 another Englishman had undertaken to convey 500 alpacas to England, but, despite the utmost care during the voyage, only three were landed alive. Waddington attributed this disaster to the want of fresh food, and therefore hit upon the expedient of accustoming those animals which he intended to send to Australia to the use of dry fodder, such as barley, bran, and hay, for some time before their embarkation. As soon as they had become somewhat inured they were shipped at Caldera, near Copiapó, and entrusted to the care of Mexican Indians accustomed to their habits, for transport to Australia. The vessel was of 800 tons burthen, and was chartered at 6000 dollars for the voyage. The fitting up of the vessel for her novel cargo cost about 300 dollars. Each animal, in addition to its ration of dried food, had a quart of water per diem. The voyage from Caldera to Sydney took 70 days. Of 316 llamas shipped or born on the voyage only 36 died, 280 arriving in excellent health at Sydney, and were with all speed turned into a large pasture on the Government domain.[23] For weeks the negotiations remained in an anxious suspense, in consequence of the original projector of the undertaking, an adventurous Yankee, named Ledger, who had purchased the animals in the interior of Peru, and after four years of unwearied assiduity had accompanied his charge