By Giving A Leading Young Man A
Shilling, They Were Easily Detained, And Threw Their Spears For
My Amusement.
They were all partly clothed, and several
could speak a little English:
Their countenances were good-
humoured and pleasant, and they appeared far from being
such utterly degraded beings as they have usually been
represented. In their own arts they are admirable. A cap being
fixed at thirty yards distance, they transfixed it with a spear,
delivered by the throwing-stick with the rapidity of an arrow
from the bow of a practised archer. In tracking animals or
men they show most wonderful sagacity; and I heard of several
of their remarks which manifested considerable acuteness.
They will not, however, cultivate the ground, or build
houses and remain stationary, or even take the trouble of
tending a flock of sheep when given to them. On the whole
they appear to me to stand some few degrees higher in the
scale of civilization than the Fuegians.
It is very curious thus to see in the midst of a civilized
people, a set of harmless savages wandering about without
knowing where they shall sleep at night, and gaining their
livelihood by hunting in the woods. As the white man has
travelled onwards, he has spread over the country belonging
to several tribes. These, although thus enclosed by one common
people, keep up their ancient distinctions, and sometimes
go to war with each other. In an engagement which
took place lately, the two parties most singularly chose the
centre of the village of Bathurst for the field of battle. This
was of service to the defeated side, for the runaway warriors
took refuge in the barracks.
The number of aborigines is rapidly decreasing. In my
whole ride, with the exception of some boys brought up by
Englishmen, I saw only one other party. 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.
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