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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For Their Very
Laborious And Harassing Journeys, During Which They Must Suffer Both Some
Degree Of Risk In Passing Through
So many other tribes on their line of
route, and of hunger and other privations in prosecuting them, the
messengers
Are but ill requited; the good feeling they displayed, or the
fatigues they went through, being recompensed only by the present of a
SMALL BLANKET AND A FEW POUNDS OF FLOUR. With these facts before us can
we say that these natives are a ferocious, irreclaimable set of savages,
and destitute of all the better attributes of humanity? yet are they
often so maligned. The very natives, who have now acted in such a
friendly manner, and rendered such important services to Europeans, are
the SAME NATIVES who were engaged in the plundering of their property,
and taking away their lives when coming over land with stock. Such is the
change which has been effected by kindness and conciliation instead of
aggression and injury; and such, I think, I may in fairness argue, would
generally be the result if SIMILAR MEANS were more frequently resorted
to.
As yet Moorunde is the only place where the experiment has been made of
assembling the natives and giving food to them; but as far as it has been
tried, it has been proved to be eminently successful. I am aware that the
system is highly disapproved of by many of the colonists, and the general
feeling among them appears to be that nothing should be given where
nothing is received, or in other words, that a native should never have
any thing given to him until he does some work for it.
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