Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central Australia And Overland From Adelaide To King George's Sound In The Years 1840-1: Sent By The Colonists Of South Australia By Eyre, Edward John
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The Subject, However, Upon A Portion Of Which Captain Grey So
Successfully Entered, Is Very Extensive, And One Which No Single
Individual, Except By The Devotion Of A Life-Time, Could Hope Fully To
Discuss.
The Continent of Australia is so vast, and the dialects,
customs, and ceremonies of its inhabitants so varied in
Detail, though so
similar in general outline and character, that it will require the lapse
of years, and the labours of many individuals, to detect and exhibit the
links which form the chain of connection in the habits and history of
tribes so remotely separated; and it will be long before any one can
attempt to give to the world a complete and well-drawn outline of the
whole.
It is not therefore to satisfy curiosity, or to interrupt the course of
inquiry, that I enter upon the present work; I neither profess, nor could
I attempt to give a full or matured account of the Aborigines of New
Holland. Captain Grey's descriptions on this subject are limited to the
races of South-western, as mine are principally directed to those of
Southern Australia, with occasionally some remarks or anecdotes relating
to tribes in other parts of the Continent with whom I have come in
contact.
The character of the Australian native has been so constantly
misrepresented and traduced, that by the world at large he is looked upon
as the lowest and most degraded of the human species, and is generally
considered as ranking but little above the members of the brute creation.
Savages have always many vices, but I do not think that these are worse
in the New Hollanders, than in many other aboriginal races.
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