Page:The Aborigines of Australia (1988).djvu/12

Rh the rapid disappearance of the unfortunate race. In New South Wales, as in the neighbouring colony of Victoria, the process of decay has been terribly swift:

The aborigines, in both colonies, have been reduced to a comparative handful, a too sure presage, it is to be feared, of the doom which awaits them all.

Notwithstanding the existence of other valuable, and, in some instances, more elaborate, accounts of the primitive inhabitants of this country, it is to be presumed that the information furnished in the following pages will have a special interest of its own, and that it will not be altogether in vain that it has been disentombed from the old files of the Empire, It has not been thought advisable to interfere in any way with the text, but, excepting obvious typographical errors, to leave it as it was left.

,

26th January, 1888.