Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/98

84 Forrest, (which, however, does not disprove a similarity of origin), respecting the difference between the aborigines of the interior and those of the coast. The latter, he says, have very little intercourse with the former, "whom they much fear, considering that all illness and its cure are attributable to the wise men of the East," but they have annual meetings for the exchange of commodities. They have been too often placed by writers, ignorant or careless of truth, among the very lowest of savage races, physically, mentally, and morally, but all experience concurs to prove that they deserve a higher place in the scale of humanity. Examples may be found of physical development equal to that of Europeans—morally they are certainly not inferior, if tested by their submission to the laws they themselves recognise, according to St. Paul's rule. Mental development must be the result of time, but there is sufficient proof at hand to show that they are far from being incapable of it.

The physical development of man will be the consequence of his mode of life, his occupation, and his food. The aborigines of West Australia, in their native state, have therefore only the qualifications of hunters, and those whose food is the natural product of the country, and they are, though capable of great fatigue and endurance, not so fitted for continuous bodily labor as those to whom for generations continuous labor has been customary.

Their mode of life makes them improvident. Their only enjoyments must necessarily be sensuous; but notwithstanding any generally received prejudice that they are incapable of improvement, and the opinion, still occasionally expressed, that they are not to be considered as men and have no souls, they have, both physically