Antiquity of Man in Victoria. 143 



aboriginal population of Gippsland in 1843 as 1800; and that 

 H. Jamieson/ of Mildura, considered that there were only 1500 

 in the country on both banks of the Murray from Swan 

 Hill to the South Australian border, and for 500 miles up the 

 course of the Darling; then Brougli Smyth's estimate is not 

 incredible, though it may be somewhat too low. 



The liuuted distribution of the aborigines in Victoria is more 

 significaTit. They only inhabited certain parts of Victoria ; they 

 lived in the country that was most easily occupied ; and other 

 districts, which would have yielded a fair supply of food, but 

 were not easily found, were practically unentered. Mr. Kenyon 

 tells me that there is no trace of their occupation in the forests 

 of the Otway ranges; and in the higher parts of Gippsland they 

 appear to have been only casual visitors. In the Mount Useful 

 country occasional stone tomahawks have been found, apparently 

 along the routes by which the aborigines traversed the country ; 

 for localities, which would have made excellent camps, appear to 

 have been quite unvisited. According to IVIr. Howitt, for ex- 

 ample, Lake Karng was probably unknown to the aborigines 

 until " about the time when Angus MacMillan discovered Gipps- 

 land" {i.e., 1839)." Not only were various parts of the country 

 unentered, but no special hill or forest tribes appear to have been 

 developed, as there probably would have been had the country 

 been long in the occupation of man. Mr. Howitt tells us that 

 in the dense jungle that covers the country east of the Snowy 

 River there " was a small tribe of ' no-man's-men,' called the 

 Bidueli, who were neither Kurnai (of Eastern Victoria) or Mur- 

 ring (of New South Wales). They were probably broken men 

 and fugitives from the surrounding tribes."'^ Had Victoria been 

 long occupied, there would probably have been such Adullamite 

 clans in various parts of Victoria. 



XL — Conclusion. 



A general survey of the evidence known to me, therefore, 

 shows that, however ancient the Australian aborigines may be, 



1 "Letters from Victorian Pioneers," edited liy T. F. Bride, Melbourne, 1899, p. 272. 



2 Howitt, A. W. : " Noteson Lake Karng." Quart. Rep. Min. Dep. Vie., Sept. 1891, p! 26 



3 Howitt, A. W., and Fison, L.: " Tlie Aborigines of Victoria." Handbook of Melbourne, 

 for the use of Members of the Austral. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Melbourne, 1900, p. 46. 



