LXXXII PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



Northern Australia has evidently not yet recovered from the 

 arid conditions which prevailed when, at all events, the later immi- 

 grations from Malaysia to the Pacific Islands were in progress. 

 Supposing that some of these coming from the far more fertile 

 islands of Malaysia had landed on Northern Australia, they would 

 have encountered nothing but dense mangrove swamps or barren 

 forbidding sandhills, with scanty or no water supply, scarcely an 

 animal and no fruits to provide them with food — conditions far 

 different from those to which they had ibeen accustomed. If they 

 attempted to travel south, either along the west coast of the Con- 

 tinent or the eastern or western shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, 

 or down Cape York Peninsula, they would have found just the 

 same depressing conditions, and one can only think that they 

 would, so to speak, have gladly taken the first boat home and 

 thankfully left Australia and its aboriginals alone. 



Dr. Rivers points out that his suggestion " can only stand if 

 there has taken place in this region that degeneration and even 

 loss of so useful an object as the canoe, of which we have definite 

 evidence in Melanesia and Polynesia." To this it may be replied, 

 in the first place, that the Northern Territory aboriginal has his 

 own bark canoe, which is by no means inefiicient so far as crossing 

 even open stretches of ocean waters is concerned. He has also 

 a dug-out canoe, which may have been received from the Malays 

 in exchange for trepang and tortoiseshell, and on the north- 

 eastern coast of Queensland he has adopted an outrigger canoe, 

 received by way of the Torres Strait Islands. So far as can be 

 said at present,- these are the only things that he has adopted 

 from outside. 



To any one who has had experience of the wild native tribes on 

 the northern, north-western, and north-eastern coasts of Australia, 

 there is very considerable difficulty in accepting the suggestion of 

 Dr. Rivers thai small seafaring parties landing at various points 

 would be able, even if they could find sufficient food to live upon, 

 to influence the aboriginals. Personally, at that early date I should 

 have been very sorry to have formed a memher of any such small 

 party. When white men, fully armed, landed on Melville Island 

 in 1823, and entrenched themselves, the. natives not only declined 

 to have anything to do with them, but the very able way in which 

 thej made things uncomfortable for the intruders was, at least, 

 an important factor in the decision to abandon the military settle- 

 ment. There was one little group of castaways who landed in 

 years long gone iby on the northern coast of Australia, and on 

 the walls of rocks and caves of what is now known as the Kim- 

 berly district did apparently attempt to introduce a new and 

 foreign element into the art of Australia. What else they tried 

 to introduce, we do not know. This we do know, that neither their 



