Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/48

 xxxviii INTRODUCTION. the Australian. Their manufactures are of the rudest kind, being confined to mats, coarse nets, bark canoes, and the weapons for hunting and war. No attempt at any textile fabric has been known to be made by them, nor do the scions of a tribe ever transcend the skill or invention manifested by the elder branches. Like birds, each constructs its nest upon one pattern, which never varies from generation to generation. They are, indeed, a strange people. Without a history, they have no past; without a religion, they have no hope; and without habits of forethought or providence, they can have no future. Their doom is sealed, and all that the civilised man can do, now that the process of annihilation is so rapidly overtaking the Aborigines of Australia, is to take care that the closing hour shall not be hurried on by want, caused by culpable neglect on his part. J. D. WOODS. KENSINGTON SOUTH AUSTRALIA, September, 1878.