Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/36

 xxvi INTRODUCTION. prize for which emigrants leave their homes, and in no cases that are known have aboriginal races been able to survive its loss. It must be borne in mind that the white settlers arrived here without any experience of the Aborigines. The settlement of New South Wales could have been no guide to them, and when experience of their habits and customs was gained, the cardinal mischief had so far advanced as to render all attempts at saving the remnant of the people a hopeless task. No process that the writer can imagine could have averted the fate which seems inevitably to hang over all uncivilised nations when they are brought into contact with Europeans. The process seems to go on everywhere, with such unvarying certainty as to bear strongly the impress of a fixed law. In those cases where a mixture of the races takes place (and in Australia this would be impossible), the characteristics of the dominant race prevail, and the inferior race becomes eventually lost. From the testimony of various writers who have described the Aborigines in different parts of Australia, there does not appear to be any very material difference in the manners and customs of the tribes, wherever they may be located. Their method of killing kangaroos and other wild animals is everywhere the same. The weapons they use in war and in hunting vary but little in character. The descriptions, therefore, that are given by the writers whose accounts of a few of the tribes constitute the present volume, will afford a tolerably accurate notion of what Australian savages are. As Mrs. Macarthur described them in 1792,* they remain to this day: "A singular race, utterly ignorant of the arts. . . . They are brave and warlike, and towards all but those who become their friends, vindictive, and even treacherous, using art where force is unavailing. All endeavours to train them to habits of social life are unavailing, for although by education their children readily learn to read and write, they invariably return to their original wild habits when old enough to provide for themselves." The general experience of those who have had much intercourse with them in this portion
 * Therry. See also Eyre and Grey.