Page:Some account of the wars, extirpation, habits.djvu/47

Rh ledge he speaks in laudatory terms. In a lengthy report, dated July, 1836, he gives a great deal of valuable information on these interesting subjects, which dispels the long received notion that they were incapable of civilisation; and as this intelligence relating to an extinct race can hardly fail of gratifying laudable curiosity, I shall repeat a good deal of what he says, running the extracts I make into a continuous narrative:—

"The minds of the aborigines," he says, "are beginning to expand. They have more enlarged views of their present situation, and are grateful for the favours conferred upon them. They are volatile in their spirits, and are extremely facetious and perfectly under command. They studiously avoid exciting my displeasure, and appear grieved if they imagine I am in the least offended. The natives are placed under no kind of restraint, but every degree of personal freedom consistent with a due regard to their health, and the formation of religious and civilised habits. The natives are now perfectly docile, and the greatest tranquility exists among them. The mortality that has taken place among the aborigines on the islands may be attributed to a variety of causes, but the following appear to be the chief—the exposed and damp situations of their dwellings, and the frail manner of their construction; their want of clothing, the saline property of the water, and the continued use of salt provisions. The catarrhal and pneumonic attacks to which they are so subject, and which are the only fatal diseases among them, are caused by the injudicious system of changing their food and manner of life.

"The natives are instructed in the principles of the Christian religion. Public worship is celebrated twice on the Sabbath. The service is commenced by singing, and reading from the Scriptures select portions, &c. A short prayer, a few cursory remarks from Scripture are then delivered, when the service is concluded by singing and prayer. The native youth, Walter, acts on these occasions as clerk, giving out the hymns, and reading the responses. The rest of the service is conducted by the catechist.

"Catechetical instruction is the best suited to the capacities of the natives; for which purpose the catechist was a short time since to commence a course of this instruction on Tuesday evenings and which is the only weekly religions instruction afforded the natives.

"In reference to the foregoing subjects, I am proud to state that the most astonishing and marked improvement has taken place among the aborigines. In the attendance at divine worship the people are left in a great degree to their own choice, and which, in matters of religion, I think they ought. But as example