Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/129

 The Husbandmen ADELAIDE AND VICINITY 103 every particle of oil and turpentine had been extracted by the heat of the sun ; but the most singular object of attraction was the remainder of the flock of sheep following, from habit, the last of the drays as quietly and regularly as a rear-guard of infantry." "No party," comments Harcus, "ever suffered more than this did." A small band, under Mr. J. A. Horrocks, a pastoralist, in 1846 started to examine the country north-west of the Mount Arden Ranges, but before their object was attained the leader was killed by the accidental discharge of a gun. His body was brought back and buried at Penwortham, near Clare, and upon his grave the camel (the only one in the Province), which accompanied the men, was shot. The native tribes in the neighborhood of Adelaide were gradually dying out, but their numbers were constantly being swelled by arrivals from the country districts. They did not abandon the city in its misfortunes, and gathered in numbers in the park lands. In the days of Governor Grey's unpopularity they took sides, and cried : " No good Gubner Grey ; berry good Gubner Gawler — plenty tuck out ! " The untutored minds of the savages prevented them from understanding the niceties of European morality and law, and in the country they repeatedly came into collision with the white people. On the shores of the Coorong they assassinated a party of shipwrecked people during Governor Gawler's administration, and a punitive expedition was sent into the district. Two men were hung on a tree overlooking the scene of some of the murders. In 1841 Major O'Halloran went to the Murray to chastise marauding natives. Other native executions took place during subsequent years, when overlanders were attacked, and one party, under Mr. C. Dutton, in 1842, perished at their hands. Settlers were killed at Port Lincoln, in the north, and in the south-east, and a large quantity of stock was destroyed. Governor Grey, in pursuance of the policy that distinguished his later career, endeavored to institute considerate laws on behalf of the aborigines. He encouraged the establishment of mission stations, and introduced to the Legislative Council a measure providing for the reception of the evidence of natives without oath, and a Bill to provide for the orphans of aborigines. Shortly after this time the native question practically disappeared from the arena of politics. In the settled districts the faces of aborigines are now seldom seen, while in the back country they are gradually disappearing. According to the census of 1 89 1, there were in South Australia ( exclusive of the Northern Territory ) 3,134 aborigines ; since that year the deaths have been double the births ! Mission stations have frequendy been established, and three still continue in existence. Crimes have been perpetrated by the natives since 1848, but, except in remote territory, not sufficient to intimidate settlement. The original occupiers of the land are fast passing away. Owing to the presence of convicts from New South Wales and Tasmania, the crime statistics were large. Bushranging was not unknown, revolting murders were perpetrated in the country and in the city, and the stories of some of these men are worthy of the gruesome sensationalism of Gaboriau. Though the original Act stipulated that no convicts were to be introduced, an- attempt was made to send to the Province from England bands of Parkhurst lads ; but South Australia indignantly refused to receive them.