L48 THE ABORIGINES 



and Bcrub. It was bounded on one side by the sea, and 

 on the other side by a salt lagoon bordered with thick 

 tea-tree, and cutting oft' access to the main. 



Winn Brs1 placed on the islands the blacks had been 

 put under the charge of most unsuitable officers — 

 ignorant men, quite unfit for the difficult and delicate 

 i ask of managing savages fresh from their native forests. 

 It was not therefore strange that at first there was 

 much disorder, and that quarrels between members of 

 different tribes were of frequent occurrence. At this 

 time, however, they were under the care of a com- 

 mandant, who threw himself into the work before him 

 with an unselfish enthusiasm. The commandant was 

 Lieutenant William J. Darling, a young officer of the 

 63rd Regiment, a brother of Sir Charles Darling, who 

 was afterwards (1863-66) Governor of Victoria. He 

 was ably seconded by the surgeon, Archibald M'Lachlan. 

 The self-denying exertions of these two officers for the 

 welfare of the poor blacks cannot be too highly praised. 

 To promote their advancement in civilisation the Com- 

 mandant and Surgeon spared no pains. They treated 

 them with uniform and patient kindness and considera- 

 tion. They seldom sat down to breakfast or tea in their 

 own little weatherboard huts without having some 

 aborigines as guests, with the view of exciting in them a 

 desire for improvement in civilisation. 



Yet the arrangements for the aborigines, well meant 

 as they undoubtedly were, seem to have been singularly 

 injudicious. They were lodged at night in shelters or 

 " breakwinds." These " breakwinds " were thatched 

 roofs sloping to the ground, with an opening at the top 

 to let out the smoke, and closed at the ends, with the 

 exception of a doorway. They were twenty feet long 

 by ten feet wide. In each of these from twenty to 

 thirty blacks were lodged. The fires were made along 

 the centre of the breakwind, and the people squatted or 

 lay on the ground around them. Blankets were pro- 

 vided for them to sleep in. To savages accustomed to 

 sleep naked in the open air beneath the rudest shelter, 

 the change to close and heated dwellings tended to make 

 them susceptible, as they had never been in their wild 

 state, to chills from atmospheric changes, and was only 

 too well calculated to induce those severe pulmonary 

 diseases which were destined to prove so fatal to them. 



