Page:The State and Position of Western Australia.djvu/91

 nets, &c. To hunting also, and the rest of their useful occupations, they will be stimulated; as it will be a part of the duty of the Superintendent to give them increased facilities for the disposal of any surplus provisions they may he able to obtain. Grounds also are to be set apart for them, to which they are to have free ingress and egress, and no restraint or coercion will be attempted; while additional protection will be secured to them, and medical aid in sickness. They will thus, it is hoped, be gradually trained to make a wise provision for the future. The rules of the Institution, which seem to be admirably adapted to the purpose, will be found detailed in the Appendix.

If this friendly and paternal system should answer the design proposed, it will, no doubt, be followed up by similar institutions throughout the colony, and thus many important undertakings of a public nature may ultimately be achieved with benefit to all parties. The plan, at all events, does great credit to the benevolence and wisdom of the Governor, and well deserves to be crowned with success.

A circumstance is related in one of the numbers of the Perth Gazette just arrived, so highly creditable to two of the Swan River natives, that no apology can be necessary for inserting it in the Appendix. Many extraordinary cases have been related of the successful tracking of footsteps by savages through a wild and uncultivated country; but this recent instance exceeds anything of the kind which the writer remembers to have heard or read of. The Hottentot corps of riflemen, who are often employed at the Cape, in tracking the Caffres that have plundered cattle &c. from the settlers on the frontier, exhibit wonderful sagacity in this way. They will discover the track or spur, as it is called, of a man by marks which would escape the notice of the most observant European. Even the recent turning