When the country was first settled it was thought that the aboriginals numbered twelve or fourteen thousand, but contact with civilization had reduced the figures very materially here, as in other parts of the world. Where white men and aboriginals have come in contact, the latter have suffered all over Australia; their relations have not changed in New Zealand and Tasmania, and this is especially the case in the last-named colony. Not a single aboriginal Tasmanian is now alive, the last one having died in 1876. When the island was first occupied by the English, the number of aboriginals was estimated at four or five thousand. The story goes that when the British landed there the natives made signs of peace, but the officer who was in charge of the landing thought the signals were hostile instead of friendly. He ordered the soldiers to fire upon the blacks, and thus began a war which lasted for several years, and when it terminated only a few hundreds of the blacks remained alive. In 1854, there were only fifteen of them left, and the number gradually diminished, until the last one died as related.
CHAPTER V.
ACROSS AUSTRALIA—TALLEST TREES IN THE WORLD.
Our friends were invited to visit a large wheat farm twenty or thirty miles north of Adelaide, and accepted the invitation with great pleasure. Leaving the city early in the morning, the railway train took them to a station a few miles from the farm, and there the owner met them in his carriage. After a substantial breakfast at the owner’s residence, they were driven to the field, or, rather, to one of the fields, where the work of harvesting was going on.
It roused their national pride somewhat to find that American reaping-machines were in use on the farm, and they also learned that the plowing was done with American plows. The field stretched out to an almost limitless extent, and it needed very little play of the imagination for the youths to believe that they were on one of their own western prairies instead of being at the antipodes.
The farm seemed to be managed in a most systematic manner, and before they departed the owner showed them a copy of the rules which the men were required to sign when they were engaged. Before signing, the rules were read to them line by line, and sentence by sentence, and each man acknowledged that he had a full understanding of the documents to which he affixed his signature.
Perhaps it may interest our readers to know something about these rules. Sixty men are employed on a farm throughout the whole year, and in the busy season three times that number are engaged. Here is the substance of the rules:—
“The bell rings at five o’clock in the morning, and this is the signal for everybody to get up. Horses are groomed and fed before six o’clock, and at that hour the men are served with breakfast. At seven o’clock the teams are harnessed, and teams and men go to the field. At noon one hour is allowed for rest and dinner, and then work goes on until five o’clock in winter and six o’clock in summer. Then the teams return to the stables, and the men get their suppers at seven o’clock. The horses are fed and watered at eight o’clock, and by ten o’clock everybody must be in bed.”