Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/30

 xx INTRODUCTION Europeans on certain tribes in the neighbourhood of the Murray River, to punish them for murders committed upon helpless and unoffending white people. The South Australian colonists happily cannot be accused of those dreadful crimes against the natives which disgrace the annals of the convict times in other colonies.* Such tales have found their records in other places and may well be discarded here. Although the native people lived generally in amity with the first settlers, there were occasional murders perpetrated by the blacks upon isolated white men. In one case, where a shepherd had been attacked and killed by natives because he would not give them sheep, the colonists became exasperated, and were with difficulty restrained from inflicting summary vengeance against their entire tribe. This murder occurred within four or five miles of Adelaide. The murderers were never brought to justice. The ringleader, it is believed, was put to death by his own tribe, who found him both troublesome and dangerous to themselves. In 1838, the brig Fanny, from Hobart Town, bound for Western Australia, went ashore, and was wrecked a short distance east of the mouth of the Murray. The passengers and crew got to land, and were well received and kindly treated by the natives. It does not appear that they received any reward for their humanity. About the middle of 1840 news arrived in Adelaide that a vessel (the brig Maria) had been wrecked on the south coast, about three days’ journey from the mouth of the Murray River, and that all the survivors from the wreck had been murdered by the natives. A party was sent out under Lieutenant Pullen, R.N. (now Admiral), to visit the spot, and investigate the matter. After a comparatively brief search, the party found the dead bodies of several men, women, and children. They were partially buried in the sand, and the flesh had been completely stripped off the bones of one of thema woman. No doubt it had been eaten, Natives were found in possession of the clothes and blankets of the murdered people, and bonnets and shawls which had belonged to
 * "Therry’s Reminiscences of New South Wales. " Lond. 1863, p. 271 et seq.