Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/115

1832.] number, probably never more than from 700 to 1,000, their habits of life being unfriendly to increase. Excepting on the west coast, they had no houses, but in inclement weather took shelter in the thicker parts of the forest, in the vallies or near the sea. They wore no clothes, but sometimes ornamented themselves by strips of skin with the fur on, which they wore around the body, arms, or legs. To enable them to resist the changes of the weather, they smeared themselves from head to foot with red ochre and grease. The men also clotted their hair with these articles, and had the ringlets drawn out like rat-tails. The women cropped their hair as close as they could with sharp stones or shells.

These people formed a few tribes, differing a little in dialect and habits; they were destitute of any traces of civilization; their food consisted of roots and some species of fungus, with shell-fish, grubs, birds, and other wild animals. The latter they took by means of the simplest missiles, or by climbing trees; they cooked them by roasting, and daily removed to a fresh place, to avoid the offal and filth that accumulated about the little fires which they kindled daily, and around which they slept. In this state, the first European visitants of their island, found them, and mistaking some peculiarities in their manners for stupidity, set them down as lower in intellect than other human beings. In the early days of the Settlement of V. D. Land by the English, a party of the Aborigines made their appearance near Risden, carrying boughs of trees in token of peace, and were fired at by order of a timid officer, who became alarmed at their visit. Several of them were killed, and the rest fled in alarm. Though they did not forget this act of outrage, they were long before they became hostile.

The opinion seems general that the misconduct of Europeans gave rise to the aggressions of the Aborigines. These aggressions, however, produced retaliation on the part of the Whites, who shot many of the Aborigines, sometimes through fear, and there is reason to apprehend, sometimes through recklessness. At length, the Aborigines finding