PALEOLITHIC RACES 507 



Bass Strait, when the Australian cordillera was continuous 

 from Tasmania to New Guinea. 1 



The primitive ancestors of the race may have been widely 

 distributed over the Old World : displaced almost everywhere by 

 superior races, they at length became confined to Australia and 

 Tasmania, and from Australia they were finally driven by the 

 existing aborigines of that continent, who were prevented 

 from following them into Tasmania, because by that time the 

 Australian cordillera had broken down, the bridge between the 

 two territories had collapsed by subsidence, and Bass Strait 

 barred the passage to the encroaching foe. 



When the more civilised nations of the north had succeeded 

 in subjugating the sea to their enterprise, even the ocean itself 

 failed in its protection to this unfortunate people, and with the 

 arrival of English colonists its doom was sealed. Only in rare 

 instances can a race of hunters contrive to co-exist with an 

 agricultural people. When the hunting ground of a tribe is 

 restricted owing to its partial occupation by the new arrivals, 

 the tribe affected is compelled to infringe on the boundaries of 

 its neighbours: this is to break the most sacred "law of the 

 Jungle," and inevitably leads to war: the pressure on one 

 boundary is propagated to the next, the ancient state of 

 equilibrium is profoundly disturbed and inter-tribal feuds 

 become increasingly frequent. A bitter feeling is naturally 

 aroused against the original offenders, the alien colonists : 

 misunderstandings of all kinds inevitably arise, and are only 

 too likely to lead to bloodshed, and a conflict between 

 natives and colonists, in which the former, already weakened 

 by disagreements among themselves, must soon succumb. So 

 it was in Tasmania. 



The estimates which have been given of the number of 

 the population at the time Europeans first became acquainted 

 with the country differ widely : the highest is 20,000, but 

 this is probably far in excess of the truth. After the war of 

 1825 to 1 83 1 there remained scarcely 200. These wretched 

 survivors were gathered together into a settlement, and from 

 1834 onwards every effort was made for their welfare, but 

 11 the white man's civilisation proved scarcely less fatal than the 



1 The distinction between the Australian and Oriental faunas renders it impos- 

 sible to maintain this view. Man must have had special means by which he could 

 enter Australia unaccompanied by other animals ; rafts or canoes seem indicated. 



