One said that his head was cut, and he must have revenge before he could lie down. Others filed past showing their wounds, and declaring that it was too bad to request them to go to sleep. I praised them as far as I could, but urged them for once to be men and to keep their word. Finally they all agreed to lie down, I waiting till the last man had disappeared; and, being doubly exhausted with the debauch and the fighting, they were soon all fast asleep. I prayed that the blessed Sleep might lull their savage passions.
Before daylight next morning, the Minister and I were hastening to the scene to prevent further fighting; but as the sun was rising we saw the last tribe of the distant Natives disappearing over the brow of a hill. A small party belonging to the district alone remained. They shouted to us, “Black fellow all gone! No more fight. You too much like black fellow!”
For three days afterwards I had still to linger there; and if their dogs ran or barked at me, the women chased them with sticks and stones, and protected me. One little touch of kindness and sympathy had unlocked their darkened hearts.
The Aborigines of Australia have been regarded as perhaps the most degraded portion of the human race, at least in the Southern Hemisphere. Like the Papuans of our Islands, they rank betwixt Malay and Negro in colour and appearance. Their hair, coarse, black, curly, but not woolly; eyes, dark and yellowish, with very heavy eyebrows; nose flat, with hole bored through septum, in which ornament is hung; small chin, thick lips, large mouth, and lustrous teeth; high cheek bones, with sunken eyes and well-developed brow. Like all Savages in their natural state, they were nearly nude, filthy, and wretched; especially in winter, when covered with kangaroo and opossum skins, which they hung around themselves loosely by day, and under which they slept at night. They sometimes daubed their bodies all over with paint, mud, charcoal, or ashes. Their women are generally of a slender build. All these features and notes are true of many of our South Sea Islanders too; but they, again, are decidedly of a higher type. On many of the Islands, faces, though dark, are as pleasant and as well formed as amongst Europeans. Besides, the Islanders are not nomadic; they live in settled villages, and cultivate the land for their support.
Having read very strong statements for and against the Aborigines, in my many journeys twenty-four years ago I resolved to embrace every opportunity of learning their customs and beliefs directly from themselves. I have also seen their disgusting “Corrobbarees,” and know by facts how demoralizing these Heathen dances are. I know also what strong drink has done amongst them.
Who wonders that the dark races melt away before the _whites_? The pioneers of civilization _will_ carry with them this demon of strong drink, the fruitful parent of every other vice. The black people drink, and become unmanageable; and through the white man’s own poison-gift an excuse is found for sweeping the poor creatures off the face of the earth. Marsden’s writings show how our Australian blacks are destroyed. But I have myself been on the track of such butcheries again and again. A Victorian lady told me the following incident. She heard a child’s pitiful cry in the bush. On tracing it, she found a little girl weeping over her younger brother. She said,—
“The white men poisoned our father and mother. They threaten to shoot me, so that I dare not go near them. I am here, weeping over my brother till we die!”
The compassionate lady promised to be a mother to the little sufferers, and to protect them. They instantly clung to her, and have proved themselves to be loving and dutiful ever since.
In Queensland itself, the Native Police, armed and mounted—accompanied by only _one_ white officer, that no tales might be told—were reported to be regularly sent out to “scatter” the blacks! That meant, in many a case, wholesale murder. But in 1887, the humane Sir Samuel Griffiths, premier, had these blood-stained forces disbanded for ever. The _Sydney Morning Herald_, 21st March, 1883, contains stronger things than were ever penned or uttered by me as to the wholesale destruction of the Aborigines. The watchword of the white settlers, practically if not theoretically, has been, “Clear them out of the way, and give us the soil!”