Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/23

18. The survivors merely moved their camps daily, leaving the sick behind to die, and the dead to fester in the sun, or as food for the wild dogs, and carrion loving birds to fatten upon, until in a short time the whole atmosphere became impregnated with the fœtid odours arising from the decomposing carcasescarcasses [sic]. The poor creatures began to think that not one would escape death, and had altogether arrived at such a profound depth of misery through this foul destroyer as to feel indifferent whether they lived or died.

From what we have been able to glean from the native son, the subject of this disease, we are inclined to think that it must have come from Sydney, and if about forty or fifty years since the inhabitants of that city underwent the ordeal of this plague, there cannot be any doubt remaining on the subject. When the bright, torrid summer displaced the moister spring, the disease gradually died out, or had run its course, leaving but a sorry remnant of the aborigines behind, and it was years before the panic then caused was even partially forgotten. To this day the old men speak of it shudderingly, and with such an amount of loathing horror, as it is impossible for any other evil to elicit from, their inherent stolidity.

This small-pox infliction seems to be the only occasion (of which they have any knowledge) upon which great numbers died together, from one cause. It is therefore not to be wondered at if the survivors do look back upon the scourge with feelings of profound dread.

The natives attributed this pestilence to the malign and magical machinations of tribes with whom they were not on