Their powers as mimics are described by Sturt—in one instance equal to if not outrivalling Liston in his best days.
I have already shown the superstition of the natives, which is proved by another remarkable case mentioned by Robert Austin:—The party shot a red kangaroo. The native ranger became much excited, and begged he might not be asked to eat of it, “For look,” said he, “its head is truly that of a dog with the ears of a cow. Saw you ever a kangaroo so fat, or meat that smelt so strange. No, sir, this creature is not natural; it must be a magician of evil. Glad I am that one of my tribe has killed one of this odious race. My father and mother never ate one. Let the northern women eat if they like, but I must be a great fool to put a strange devil down my throat, to give me the stomach-ache.”
Sir George Grey describes their huts in the rain, which gave not only some idea of shelter, but even of comfort. They afforded a very favorable specimen of the taste of the gins, whose business it is generally to construct the huts. The village of bowers also occupied more space than the encampments of the natives in general. The choice of a shady spot seemed to have been an object, and to have been selected with care. Here then we have, at considerable distances, natives erecting huts and living in something like communities. Can these be of the same origin as the general population, or has the circumstance that fruits and food may be found sufficient for support in these localities induced the aborigines to lead a more settled life?
Mitchell says they found a tree with a fruit resembling a small russet apple, skin rough, the pulp a rich crimson, and covering a large stone; an agreeable acid. So in Grey’s case, the natives seem to have stored certain nuts. These grow in some part of the northern territory, affording food for the natives for several months. They seem to have some idea of measuring time, for they pointed out to Mitchell’s party that white man (evidently Sturt’s party) had passed there, pointing to the sun, six annual revolutions.
CHAPTER III.
First settlement of the Colony—Claims of the Aborigines—Extracts from Collins’s Works—Bennillong and Cole-be—Dangerous proceedings of the Aborigines—Frightful massacre by the Blacks—Notes by a University man—Mr. Trollope’s remarks—Aboriginal Police—Doom of the Queensland Savage—Massacre on Liverpool Plains—South Australian Aboriginals.
The project of deporting criminals to this distant, almost unknown, portion of the world—a country whose resources were unknown, and distant 16,000 miles—was a bold measure, arising partly from necessity, and much discussed in the public Press, but the expedient has been ultimately crowned with success. Homes have been made for multitudes, British liberty and law established, and, above all, Christianity extended to a portion of the world that for ages had remained in the darkness of heathenism, shut out from commerce and the intercourse of intelligence.
Strange to say, in this expatriation no provision had been made by the Government for that which is the foundation of national success—religion, and it was not until Mr. Wilberforce, with his Christian zeal, pressed the Government, that a single minister of religion, Mr. Johnston, was provided, while a reckless and degraded class of men was about to be cast into the midst of a savage people, not at all calculated to raise or elevate them, but rather to depress and vitiate, and ultimately to destroy them.
Whatever benefit the civilized world has acquired in opening up a new territory for their over-peopled state, the poor unfortunate aborigines have had to suffer increased misery, wretchedness, and gradual extinction.
The Bishop of Perth has well put the question: “The darkness they were in in their original condition was the darkness of ignorance—dark indeed, but far darker is their state when to the darkness of ignorance is added the degradation of the acquired vices of civilization.”