Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/50

24 All that can perhaps be said as to the antiquity of man in the Australian continent appears to be, that he may have inhabited it as a contemporary of the extinct marsupial fauna, the giant forms of which, equally with himself, appear to have been isolated by those depressions of the surface which formed Torres and Bass Straits. Those changes in the physical geography of Australia may have occurred at a somewhat later geological period than seems to have been usually accepted.

I may now advance a further step and consider the origin of the primitive Tasmanians and Australians.

If the conclusions to which I have now been led are correct, it follows that the Tasmanians were the autochthonous inhabitants of Australia, and that their preservation in Tasmania was due to isolation by the formation of Bass Strait.

The occupation of the continent by the Australians, who, it may be reasonably held, were in a somewhat higher state of culture and who were better armed than the Tasmanians, must have resulted in the amalgamation of the two races, either by the subjection of the latter, or, what is more likely from what we know of the Australians of the present day, by the extermination of the former inhabitants, at least so far as regarded the males, and the absorption of the females into the conquering tribes.

At any rate, whatever the process may have been, the result of a strong negroid cross in the Australians may be accepted.

Deducting this negroid element, there remains a residuum from which also must be deducted the "Malay element" of Mr. Mathew, who finds in the Australian language traces of Malay influence. He says that they are not numerous, are not met with in the extreme north-west, where they might be expected, but turn up in unexpected parts of Australia, far removed from casual intercourse with Malays.

In order to account for this Malay element, he introduces parties of Malays, who, either from choice or necessity, landed and became naturalised at various spots on the east, north, and west coasts of Australia. These Malays are thus