Both The Good And Bad Features In Their Characters May, I Believe, In A Great Measure Be Attributed To The Strong Influence Exercised Among Them By A White Man, Called By The Natives "Wini," Who Has Been Living There For Many Years.

This man, who is supposed to be an escaped convict from one of the former penal settlements in Australia, no doubt considers it politic to keep Europeans from visiting the island where he resides, "Badu".

The natives of Cape York hold him and the Banks Islanders generally in the greatest dread, giving me to understand that all strangers going to these islands are killed, and their heads cut off. The latter appears to be the custom of these and the neighbouring islands towards their slain enemies.

23. The natives of the islands more to the northward and eastward are said to be of milder dispositions, especially the Darnley Islanders - of whom Captain Edwards, of Sydney, who had a "Bech-de-mer" fishing establishment there during the last year, speaks in high terms as being of friendly dispositions and displaying very considerable intelligence, living in comfortable huts and cultivating yams, bananas, coconuts, etc., in considerable quantities. Among these islanders I should think missionaries might establish themselves without great difficulty, and with a satisfactory result.

24. I think that the simple fact of a settlement of Europeans being established at Cape York will very much tend to curb the savage natures of the natives, not only of the mainland, but also of the islands, and any unfortunates who may be cast among them from shipwrecked vessels will, at all events, have their lives spared; and I believe that, should such an event take place, I should soon hear of it from the natives here.

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