Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/61

CHAP. II rise on the other side of the Divide have short but vigorous courses to the sea.

It is in the coastal districts that one finds the most favourable conditions for the native tribes, though at the head of the Great Australian Bight the desert extends nearly to the sea, for the Nullarbor Plains are waterless, and beyond them the desert, to where Sturt Creek ends in the northern parts of West Australia. Yet the Yerkla-mining people who live there are better off than those who inhabit the desert, having not only the land, but also the sea, from which to procure food. The advantages of the coast lands increase on coming eastwards; and from the Gulf of St. Vincent the country afforded ample food supplies, from the lakes at the Murray mouth and the country bordering upon them and the sea. Still more favourable conditions existed in Victoria, and especially in Gippsland, where again extensive lakes and adjacent country afforded an unfailing supply of fish and game. The tribes of the New South Wales coast enjoyed similar advantages, the principal difference being that the climate becomes warmer on proceeding northwards, and the food supplies more varied in character, until on the Queensland coast the tropical influence is met with. For instance, where the scope of my work ends, the blacks hunt the tree kangaroo, and ponds and lagoons furnish edible plants in abundance. The high mountains of the Dividing Range, which commences in Central Victoria, and its accompanying tablelands, extend northwards the whole length of the coast. In many parts they isolated the tribes of the coast from those inland, though there were tracks here and there by which friendly meetings or hostile raids took place between some of the tribes. The character of the coastal country itself also frequently isolated the tribes to some extent from their immediate neighbours.