Page:Some account of the wars, extirpation, habits.djvu/63

Rh may be justly placed in the very lowest scale of barbarism;" and he adds, "they live in a state of brute nature." But this was not the case, for they were naturally an intellectual race, with faculties susceptible of very easy culture, as they showed when in their wild state, by the clever manner in which (after a brief association firstly with the half civilised Musquito, and secondly, with some other domesticated blacks, such as Tegg for example, and many others,) they planned all their operations against the Settlers, in which they seldom failed of success; and by the facility with which, when in captivity and under good guidance, they received instruction, and accommodated themselves to European habits. They must not be judged of by what we of the present day saw of them in the dark state of their demoralisation at Oyster Cove, where, as at Flinders Island during the last years of their sojourn, they were suffered to sink into a state of degradation, even lower that from which they had emerged.

Forty years and more have passed away since they ceased to exist as an independent race of men; and their frequent hostile incursions into the settled districts, their slaughterings and houseburnings, are well-nigh erased from recollection; but that they were a most mischeviousmischievous [sic], determined, and deadly foe, is proved not only by a multitude of contemporaneous documents, preserved in the Colonial Secretary's Office, but by the newspapers of the day, that teem with narratives of their aggressiveness, and shew us that even in the days of their decay—chiefly from natural causes—they took life about five times as often as it was inflicted upon themselves, besides committing such devastations on property, as we in these peaceful times can scarcely be brought to understand.

Mr. McKay, who knew this people so intimately, relates a circumstance in connection with their manifold aggressions on our people, that has not been published before. Indeed it could hardly be known to any except to one who like him, had lived very much amongst them. But it is so creditable to the great mass of them, that justice to the memory of this people requires that it should not go unrecorded. He reminded me of the fact of our women being sometimes killed by them in the many farm fights in which they were concerned; but he assures me that with hardly an exception the men highly disapproved of it; and that every one of this class of murders, with which the whole race was credited, were really traceable to two individuals only; both of whom were chiefs, namely, the leader of the Piper's