Page:Some account of the wars, extirpation, habits.djvu/32

24 self amongst them unarmed, and unattended by any of his Europeans, and at hearing themselves addressed by the white stranger in their own beautiful language was always very great. These circumstances, coupled with the gratifying promises he made them for their future repose and comfort, completed the work of their subjugation, as he aptly calls it.

He often remained at the huts of these simple-minded children of the forest for weeks together, taking part with them in their hunting excursions and nocturnal sports, which, from previous companionship with his domesticated blacks, he quite understood; all of which was only smoothing the road by which he ultimately led them to the great graveyard of Flinders Island.

These pleasant meetings were not always unattended with personal inconvenience; and once during a three weeks' association with this "interesting people," as he often styles them, they infected him and all his blacks with a greviousgrievous [sic] fit of the itch, which, no doubt, greatly incommoded the party. "During my stay with this people," he writes, (July 27, 1830), "myself and aborigines became infected with a cutaneous disorder to which the natives are subject."

This friendly interview, of which I shall have to speak more in detail presently, ended in nothing but the establishing of friendly feelings, which, indeed, was all that his instructions at this time permitted. He left them with the best opinions of himself and of the Government he served, which were disseminated amongst all the tribes with whom they were on friendly terms. Presently under the heading of "Legends of our Native Tribes," I shall give some of the most notable of his enterprises against the blacks; but will now proceed to the subject of their

Of the mode of warfare of this people little remains to be added to what I have already said, though I shall be unable to avoid incorporating a few incidental remarks on the subject in some of the passages that follow; for example, in describing their weapons, &c., it may be referred to again.

It was held by some very intelligent witnesses who were examined by the Aboriginal Committee in 1830, and who had been in the colony from the day of its foundation, that at the time of the first landing of the European settlers the number of savages then in the woods was not less than 7,000, a fact which could not be certainly known, but which might be pretty fairly guessed from the number of known tribes, and a good estimate of their