This Decrease, No
Doubt, Must Be Partly Owing To The Introduction Of Spirits, To
European Diseases (Even The Milder Ones Of Which, Such As
The Measles, [1] Prove Very Destructive), And To The Gradual
Extinction Of The Wild Animals.
It is said that numbers of
their children invariably perish in very early infancy from
the effects of their
Wandering life; and as the difficulty of
procuring food increases, so must their wandering habits
increase; and hence the population, without any apparent
deaths from famine, is repressed in a manner extremely
sudden compared to what happens in civilized countries,
where the father, though in adding to his labour he may injure
himself, does not destroy his offspring.
Besides the several evident causes of destruction, there
appears to be some more mysterious agency generally at
work. Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue
the aboriginal. We may look to the wide extent of the
Americas, Polynesia, the Cape of Good Hope, and Australia,
and we find the same result. Nor is it the white man alone
that thus acts the destroyer; the Polynesian of Malay extraction
has in parts of the East Indian archipelago, thus driven
before him the dark-coloured native. The varieties of man
seem to act on each other in the same way as different species
of animals - the stronger always extirpating the weaker. It
was melancholy at New Zealand to hear the fine energetic
natives saying that they knew the land was doomed to pass
from their children. Every one has heard of the inexplicable
reduction of the population in the beautiful and healthy island
of Tahiti since the date of Captain Cook's voyages: although
in that case we might have expected that it would have been
increased; for infanticide, which formerly prevailed to so
extraordinary a degree, has ceased; profligacy has greatly
diminished, and the murderous wars become less frequent.
The Rev. J. Williams, in his interesting work, [2] says, that
the first intercourse between natives and Europeans, "is
invariably attended with the introduction of fever, dysentery,
or some other disease, which carries off numbers of the people."
Again he affirms, "It is certainly a fact, which cannot
be controverted, that most of the diseases which have raged
in the islands during my residence there, have been introduced
by ships; [3] and what renders this fact remarkable is,
that there might be no appearance of disease among the crew
of the ship which conveyed this destructive importation."
This statement is not quite so extraordinary as it at first
appears; for several cases are on record of the most malignant
fevers having broken out, although the parties themselves,
who were the cause, were not affected. In the early
part of the reign of George III., a prisoner who had been
confined in a dungeon, was taken in a coach with four constables
before a magistrate; and although the man himself
was not ill, the four constables died from a short putrid
fever; but the contagion extended to no others. From these
facts it would almost appear as if the effluvium of one set
of men shut up for some time together was poisonous when
inhaled by others; and possibly more so, if the men be of
different races. Mysterious as this circumstance appears to
be, it is not more surprising than that the body of one's
fellow-creature, directly after death, and before putrefaction
has commenced, should often be of so deleterious a quality,
that the mere puncture from an instrument used in its
dissection, should prove fatal.
17th. - Early in the morning we passed the Nepean in a
ferry-boat. The river, although at this spot both broad and
deep, had a very small body of running water. Having
crossed a low piece of land on the opposite side, we reached
the slope of the Blue Mountains. The ascent is not steep,
the road having been cut with much care on the side of a
sandstone cliff. On the summit an almost level plain extends,
which, rising imperceptibly to the westward, at last attains
a height of more than 3000 feet. From so grand a title as
Blue Mountains, and from their absolute altitude, I expected
to have seen a bold chain of mountains crossing the country;
but instead of this, a sloping plain presents merely an
inconsiderable front to the low land near the coast. From
this first slope, the view of the extensive woodland to the
east was striking, and the surrounding trees grew bold and
lofty. But when once on the sandstone platform, the scenery
becomes exceedingly monotonous; each side of the road is
bordered by scrubby trees of the never-failing Eucalyptus
family; and with the exception of two or three small inns,
there are no houses or cultivated land: the road, moreover,
is solitary; the most frequent object being a bullock-waggon,
piled up with bales of wool.
In the middle of the day we baited our horses at a little
inn, called the Weatherboard. The country here is elevated
2800 feet above the sea. About a mile and a half from this
place there is a view exceedingly well worth visiting. Following
down a little valley and its tiny rill of water, an
immense gulf unexpectedly opens through the trees which
border the pathway, at the depth of perhaps 1500 feet.
Walking on a few yards, one stands on the brink of a vast
precipice, and below one sees a grand bay or gulf, for I know
not what other name to give it, thickly covered with forest.
The point of view is situated as if at the head of a bay, the
line of cliff diverging on each side, and showing headland
behind headland, as on a bold sea-coast. These cliffs are
composed of horizontal strata of whitish sandstone; and
are so absolutely vertical, that in many places a person
standing on the edge and throwing down a stone, can see it
strike the trees in the abyss below.
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