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134 tribes." Another annihilating process is thus described by Chief-Protector Robinson:—"T—— was overseer of a station in the Western District, and was notorious for killing natives. No legal evidence could be obtained against this nefarious individual. In the course of my inquiries in my late expedition I found a tribe, a section of the Jarcourts, totally extinct, and it was affirmed by the natives that T—— had destroyed them. The tribes are rapidly diminishing. The Colijans, once a numerous and powerful people, inhabiting the fertile region of Lake Colac, are now reduced, all ages and sexes, to under 40, and these are still on the decay. The Jarcourts, inhabiting the country to the west of the great Lake Carangermite, once a very numerous and powerful people, are now reduced to under 60." The Rev. Mr. Handt, one of the clergymen attached to the German mission in the Moreton Bay district, writes:—"The aborigines have been on the decrease during the past year. Several fights have taken place among them; but this is not the chief cause of this circumstance, as their fights bear rather the character of warlike games, in which seldom more than one, and frequently none at all, is killed, but merely some wounded. One of the principal causes of their decrease is the diseases to which they are subject. I am sorry to state that where the Europeans have established cattle and sheep stations here, some hostilities have taken place between the aborigines and the settlers, in which some on both sides have lost their lives."