Page:An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal.djvu/214

 126 THE Auniou's pkefa:'E.

Circumstances, -which no huuiau power could control, brought the mission to a final termination on December 31, 1841, when the mission ceased, not from any want of support from the Govern- ment, nor from any inclination on my own part to retire from the work, but solely from the sad fact that the aborigines themselves had then become almost extinct, for I had actually outlived a very large majority of the blacks, more especially of those with whom I had been associated for seventeen years. The extinction of the aborigines is still progressing throughout these colonies. The last man of the tribe which formerly occupied the site of Sydney may now be seen sitting by the way side, a paralytic, soliciting alms from passers by, and this he does from choice, rather than enter the Benevolent Asylum. Those who drive by in their carriages along the South Head Road often throw him a sixpence or so, and thus he is bountifully provided for in his native and beloved stale of freedom.

Under such circumstances, the translation of the Gospel by St. Luke can only be now a work of curiosity,* — a record of the language of a tribe that once existed, and would have, otherwise, been numbered with those nations and their forgotten languages, and peoples with their unknown tongues, who have passed away from this globe and are buried in oblivion.

Elliot, the missionary to the North American Indians, made a translation of the Scriptures into their language, which has recently been published ; but only one Indian now remains who knows that dialect.

This translation of the Gospel of Luke into the language of the aborigines, was made by me with the assistance of the intelligen.t aboriginal, M'Gill, whose history is attached. f Thrice I wrote it, and he and I went through it sentence by sentence, and word for word, while I explained to him carefully the meaning as we proceeded. M'Gill spoke the English language fluently. The third revisal was completed in 1831. I then proceeded with the Gospel of Mark, a selection of prayers from the Book of Common Prayer, with which to commence public worship with the few sur- viving blacks ; I prepared a Spelling book ; I had also commenced the Gospel of Matthew, when the mission was brought to its final close.

Not long ago, I accidentally found at a book-stall a copy of the first specimens of an Australian language, which I published some

tribe, and that their brethren, for some hundreds of miles along the coast to the north and south of Lake Macquarie, spoke a language which is essentially the same. Northwards from the Hunter River to the Macleay, tliis language is still spoken. — Ed.
 * Our author did not know that his Awabakal blacks were only a sub-

t See page 88.— Ed,

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