258 NATTJBAL HISTOET SKETCHES. 



CHAPTEE XVII. 



THE ABOBIGINES OF POST PHILLIP PARTING ADVICE TO OLD FHIENBS, 

 AND CONCLUSION. 



OF the Australian aborigines I have but little to say. 

 They are a race fast passing away ; and the few that we 

 do meet with now about Melbourne in fact, in all the 

 settled districts are very different men from the real 

 Australian native of the last century. There are only 

 two tribes now in the vicinity of Melbourne ; and these 

 are but remnants of what they were when we first took 

 possession of their country. The Tarra Blacks, who camp 

 about the ranges at the head of the Tarra, north-east of 

 Melbourne, and the " Bomerang, or Coast Tribe," whose 

 head station is at Mordialloc, and who own if we can 

 use that term now we have dispossessed them of all their 

 land the country to the southward down to the Heads. 

 These, by constant intercourse with the white man, have 

 learnt much of our language and habits, are on capital 

 terms with us, and there is no more danger in meeting a 

 lot of them in the bush than a gang of gipsies at home. 

 The Gipps Land tribe appears to be the most numerous 

 in this part of Port Phillip, and these men seem to 

 be wilder and more ferocious than any I have seen. 

 "Wherever Government has taken up their laud, a 



