Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/45

 INTRODUCTION. xxxv feasted at night, and for once Wylie admitted that his belly was full. He commenced by eating a pound and a-half of horseflesh and a little bread; he then ate the entrails, paunch, liver, lights, and the two hind legs of the young kangaroo; next followed a penguin that he had found dead upon the beach. Upon this he forced down the whole of the hide of the kangaroo after singing the hair off, and wound up this meal by swallowing the tough skin of the penguin. He then made a little fire and lay down to sleep."* The strange part of the tale is, that he was none the worse for the gorge, which, in the condition Eyre and his men were in, might have been expected to make him seriously ill. It shows, however, what a savage can accomplish in the way of voracity. On the subject of the dialects in use amongst the Aborigines of the continent, a strong resemblance amongst them is said to prevail. In many places, however, one tribe is unable to understand another tribe, and as far as intercourse between them goes, such dissimilarity prevails as almost to lead to the inference that the different tribes spoke totally different languages. In effect they do, but it has been established with a reasonable degree of certainty from analogies and other circumstances, for which there is no space here, that the forms of speech sprung, as the natives did, from one source, and that the modifications and variations which have taken place are due entirely to special circumstances. If the natives had possessed the art of writing, even in the most rude or symbolic form, the question would not need discussion, but they have nothing of the kind. They have not marked any single thing with which they have been connected or associated with any trace of permanence, and when the races have faded out, nothing more than the mere fact that blacks once lived in certain places remains behind. A more complete and utter obliteration of a people, as far as it has gone, has scarcely occurred within the scope of the world’s history. For those who have an interest in the subject of the native languages, the papers which follow this Introduction will be found
 * Eyre, Vol., II, pp. 42-3.