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Rh acres each, but the Mission to the North remained unendowed, as it was beyond the limits of the Swan River colony.

The members of the Southern Mission were the first to begin their labours. Leaving Perth upon the 6th of February, they went on foot to Albany, where they arrived about the end of March, and, making that town their central point, traversed the bush in every direction, seeking out the savages, and suffering at the same time every kind of privation. Kind-hearted Protestants who saw their necessity brought them such relief as they could afford, even the sailors belonging to vessels in the port contributing presents of food; but supplies of this kind being naturally precarious, and the health of the party giving way, they determined on abandoning the work in the South and taking refuge in the island of Mauritius, where a mission existed at that time under the care of an English Benedictine bishop.

The Mission to the North, consisting of three persons, sailed for Sydney, (being obliged in those days to circumnavigate almost the whole continent in order to reach their destination,) and, having arrived at Sydney, again quitted it for Port Essington in another ship which was wrecked in Torres Straits, when all on board perished excepting the captain and a Tyrolese priest, who were rescued and brought off from a rock on which they had taken refuge. The poor Tyrolese died two years afterwards, worn out with incessant labour and by the effects of a climate so unhealthy as to have since caused the northern coasts of Australia to be almost deserted by Europeans.