Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/17

12 exposure to wet and cold; but chronic dysentry, indigestion, and their innumerable congeners are left behind to tell the tale of indiscriminate gluttony.

It is during the seasons of plenty that the venereal disease is sown broadcast through the native tribes. At those times the friendly tribes muster together in great force. It is no unusual thing to see two or three hundred banded together in one camp, and as intercouse [sic] is quite unrestricted between the sexes, it can very easily be imagined how this foul malady runs riot, and spreads, during such gatherings. Another patent effect of this promiscious [sic] intercourse between the sexes is the prevalence of sterility amongst the women. Few children are born in comparison to the numbers of women in each tribe of a child-bearing age. It is only such natives as are in the habit of living with their wives much apart from their respective tribes who have anything like families. In each tribe there are usually a few of this kind, and it is principally due to them that the race has not come to an end long since.

The foregoing are amongst the principal causes of the paucity of our aborigines, and it is a moot point, and one which will now remain so, whether these causes would not have had the effect of bringing our native tribes to an end, even although European settlement had never reached these shores. It is true that a longer period might have elapsed before the end came, as without doubt the vices which have been engrafted upon their own corrupt nature by the advent of civilisation are materially hastening the final end, and it is extremely problematical whether the means adopted by the Government and the clergy will tend