Though He Lacked The Large Grasp, The Fertile
Suggestiveness, Of Great Scientific Travellers Like Humboldt, Darwin, And
Alfred Russel Wallace,
He was curious, well informed, industrious, and
sympathetic; and as he was the first trained anthropologist to enter into
personal
Relations with the Tasmanian blacks - a race now become extinct
under the shrivelling touch of European civilisation - his writings
concerning them have great value, quite apart from the pleasure with
which they may be read. A couple of pages describing Peron's first
meeting with the aboriginals when out looking for water, and the
amazement of the savages on encountering the whites - an incident given
with delightful humour, and at the same time showing close and careful
observation - will be likely to be welcomed by the reader.
"In pursuing our route we came to a little cove, at the bottom of which
appeared a pretty valley, which seemed to offer the prospect of finding
sweet water. That consideration decided M. H. Freycinet to land there. We
had scarcely put foot upon the shore, when two natives made their
appearance upon the peak of a neighbouring hill. In response to the signs
of friendship that we made to them, one of them leapt, rather than
climbed, from the height of the rock, and was in the midst of us in the
twinkling of an eye. He was a young man of from twenty-two to twenty-four
years of age, of generally strong build, having no other physical fault
than the extreme slenderness of legs and arms that is characteristic of
his race.
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