Port Molle — Oueensland Aboris^ines. 



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cockatoos flew around and above the summits of the tallest trees, 

 and by the incessant screaming which they maintained, gave one 

 the idea that the avifauna was more abundant than we eventually 

 found it to be. On the beach we collected shells of the genera 

 Nerita, Terebra, Siliijiiaria, and Ostrcca, and among the dry hot 

 stones above high water mark we found in great numbers an 

 Isopod Crustacean, and as the females were bearing ova, Haswell 

 took the opportunity to make some researches into the mode of 

 development of the embryo. 



I spent another day accompanying Navigating-LieutenantPetley, 

 who was then cruising from point to point in one of our whale- 

 boats, determining on the positions for maintriangulation. In the 

 course of the day we visited the lighthouse on Dean Island, and 

 on arriving there found a large concourse of blacks on the hill 

 above, looking on our intrusion with great consternation. The 

 lighthouse people told us that the natives, from their different 

 camps on the island, had observed our approach while we were 

 yet a long distance off, and hastily concluding that we were a 

 party of black police coming to disperse {i.e., shoot) them, had 

 fled with precipitation from all parts of the island, to seek the 

 protection of the white inhabitants of the lighthouse. It appeared 

 that some {q\^ years previously the natives of Port Molle had 

 treacherously attacked and murdered the shipwrecked crew of a 

 schooner, and in requital for this the Queensland Government had 

 made an example of them by letting loose a party of " black 

 police," who, with their rifles, had made fearful havoc among the 

 comparatively unarmed natives. The " black police," or " black 

 troopers," as they are more commonly called, are a gang of half- 

 reclaimed aborigines, enrolled and armed as policemen, who are 

 distributed over various parts of the colony, and are under the 

 immediate direction of the white police inspectors. Their skill 

 as bush " trackers " is too well known to need description, and 

 the peculiar ferocity with which they behave towards their own 

 countrymen is due to the fact that they are drawn from a part 



