Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/22

17 tiny other time, is quite unknown; in fact, it would be deemed derogatory to manhood to run the slighest [sic] personal risk for any such quixotic purpose; but then in all phases of aborignal [sic] life self-preservation is the only law. Everything they do, in short, is done instinctively; they never by any chance arrive at a conclusion by sheer force of logical reasoning.

There seems to be a perfect absence of diseases having a contagious nature, such as fevers, &c. With the exception of occasional visits from influenza, which seldom has a fatal termination, they are altogether exempt. During winter, 'tis true, they are very much subject to a kind of scurvy, which, from its prevalence, might be deemed contagious but we are inclined to imagine that it partakes more of a venereal character, and each break out is due to lack of nutritious food, combined with cold, wet lodgings. As the mild spring advances, and food becomes plentiful, this distemper gradually leaves them, and by summer their skins have returned to their normal sleekness, with a glossiness truly wonderful, considering the quantity of blotches with which they were marred during winter.

All the very old men in the colony show distinct smallpox traces. In speaking of this scourge, they say that it came with the waters—that is, it flowed down the rivers in the early flood season, laying its death-clutch on every tribe in its progress, until the whole country became perfectly decimated by the fell disease. During the earlier stages of its ravages the natives gave proper sepulture to its victims, but at last the death-rate became so heavy, and the panic so great, that burying the bodies was no longer