336 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



owing to the loss of three-fourths of the horses (including all that 

 were of value) and at least a fifth of the cattle. 



The Brothers have been criticised for their treatment of the 

 BLACKS, and their tale shows that about fifty of the latter fell. Still 

 it must not be forgotten that the hostility and treachery of the 

 blacks was entirely unprovoked. These natives dogged the steps 

 of the travellers, and threatened their lives day by day. There can 

 be no doubt that had the Brothers betrayed any weakness, they 

 would have shared Kennedy's fate. 



I incline to the belief, founded on personal contact with the 

 AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES, that their MURDEROUS PROPENSITIES have 

 no higher motive than MERE SPORTSMANSHIP. Their instinct is to 

 ambush and kill their game, and to a race of cannibals human 

 strangers are big game, and nothing more. 



On the other hand, it is just possible that traditions of the 

 descent of white men or Malays on the shores of the Cape York 

 Peninsula may have been handed down among the natives for 

 hundreds of years ; at all events since the earliest landing of the 

 DUTCHMAN, or the perhaps still earlier landing of SPANIARDS and 

 PORTUGUESE, and that the intrusion of foreigners was synonymous 

 in their minds with surprise, slaughter and kidnapping. Even in 

 that case the question of " Who began it ? " may be raised. Unless 

 the savages of three centuries ago were of milder manners than their 

 descendants of to-day, I believe that they would have been tempted 

 beyond their strength if ever they saw strangers at their mercy. 



The contribution of the Jardine Brothers to a knowledge of 

 the GEOGRAPHY OF THE CAPE YORK PENINSULA was of immensely 

 greater value than that of Leichhardt or Kennedy. The former 

 only touched on a corner of the Peninsula and the journal of the 

 latter perished with him. We owe to the Brothers our first real 

 knowledge of the western interior of the Peninsula. I esteem it a 

 privilege to have traced their steps, with the aid of modern maps, 

 over a country which in their time was an uncharted waste. 



ALICK JARDINE is now resident in London. In 1863, the 

 Brothers were awarded the Murchison grant of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society in recognition of their services of twenty-one 

 years previously. Two interesting PHOTOGRAPHS are reproduced in 

 this volume. The first is from Byerley's frontispiece, and shows 

 Frank (sitting) and Alick (standing), and apparently dates from 1867. 

 The second is from the Queenslander of loth February, 1917, and 

 is a recent portrait of FRANK. The latter settled at Somerset on 

 his arrival with the cattle in 1865, and after the transfer of the 

 government offices to Thursday Island made the old residency his 

 home, or rather headquarters. After his father's return to the 

 south, Frank was Acting Resident many times during the intervals 

 between the periods when his father's successors held the office. 

 For some years, his pastoral interests occupied his attention, but in 



