Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/145

 On the whole, it may be more easily credited that the race of the island once occupied the mainland and was driven southwards by more warlike or skilful tribes than that it separately invented similar traditions and observances. To float across Bass's Straits in a canoe might sometimes be hazardous, but in calm weather was easy. Many recorded instances of drifting canoes exceed by far the width of Bass's Straits. The so-called catamaran of Southern Tasmania, moreover, could not be filled with water nor upset.

To ascribe the habits of the islanders to chance when they conform to those of the continent would be a wild abandonment of reason, when the similarities are found to be abundant. To account for the dissimilarities is difficult; but on the supposition that frequently in the lapse of ages families would land on the northern coast of the continent, it is highly credible that the intermingling of fresh blood would produce physical differences, and thus the race on the continent might diverge in appearance from that which was isolated in the southern island. Thus also any invention, such as that of the boomerang or the wommeral, would remain unknown in the island, although it would be communicated gradually on the continent.

The number of the islanders at the date of British occupation has been computed at 7000, divided into about a score of tribes, estranged by warfare, and speaking four differing dialects. They roved from place to place within their tribal limits. Like their neighbours on the continent, when they sent out a war-party they composed it of men only. If they apprehended an attack, they sent their women and children to mountain recesses, and watched the object of dread. Thus for days an exploring party led by