202 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN TASMANIA. 



While in the west, south, and east the nearest land is- 

 thousands of miles distant, the north coast of Tasmania 

 is in a straight line about 184 miles from the coast of 

 Victoria. We therefore have an area absolutely isolated 

 from the remainder of the world, and it is only thanks to 

 this isolation that the Tasmanian race has been preserved 

 as long as it had been. We may safely assume that had 

 there been any connection whatsoever between Tasmania 

 and Australia before the arrival of the Europeans, the 

 Aborigines would have been wiped out by a superior race 

 long before we ever knew of their existence. We may 

 now well raise the question, how did the Tasmanians get 

 into their island country? As they cannot have arrived 

 in boats or canoes, they must have arrived over a land 

 route. We know sufBciently enough of their habits that 

 it is a certainty that they could not build any canoes or 

 boats worthy of that name. The fabrics that go under this 

 name are nothing more than bundles of reed and grass 

 tied together with a grass rope. These structures might 

 serve to cross a river, or to reach Bruny or Maria Island 

 from the Tasmanian coast, but it would be more than ab- 

 surd to assume that the Tasmanians navigated a stormy 

 sea on these reed bundles without sails and paddles. 

 The best proof, if any such would be required to support 

 this view, is the transportation of the last remains of the 

 race to Flinders Island. Had there been the faintest idea 

 that they could construct serviceable canoes, by means 

 of which they might manage to escape, they would cer- 

 tainly not have been sent to Flinders Island. But nobody 

 seems to have entertained even the faintest notion that 

 such could be possible. Davies (i) in his valuable ac- 

 count of the Aborigines, says: — ''This (viz., their re- 

 duced number) may have been in a great measure owing 

 to their change of living and food, but much more so to 

 their banishment from the mainland of Van Diemen's 

 Land, which is visible from Flinders Island ; and the 

 natives have often pointed it out to me with expressions 

 of the deepest sorrow depicted on their countenances." 



Had the Aborigines really possessed the faculty to- 

 construct serviceable boats, surely they would have built 

 such in order to escape from a place which was appa- 



(i) The Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land, Tasm. Journ. 

 of Nat. Science, 1846, Vol. XL, pag. 419. 



