The Aborigines 205 



a very poor head for figures, and is unable to 

 count beyond ten. Hence the story of the black- 

 fellow whose master took him to Sydney, and 

 who, on his return to the station, was questioned 

 by the boundary-rider, "Well, Jacky, did you see 

 many people in Sydney ? ' ' 



"My word! Tousands ! Millions! Very nearly 

 fifty!" 



Even on the far-out cattle stations, poor Jacky 

 is worse off than in his wild state. For his rugs 

 of native animals, he learns to substitute absorb- 

 ent blankets, and the damp affects him in a 

 terrible way. Pulmonary complaints develop 

 with an awful rapidity, and the black- fellow is 

 unable to make any fight against them. He is 

 even worse off in the more settled districts, where 

 he may be seen hanging around the public- 

 houses and begging for money and tobacco. 



Some of them find employment on the sugar 

 plantations, but in too many cases their em- 

 ployers are Chinamen, who bribe them to work 

 with gifts of opium. There is a law forbidding 

 any one to supply this drug to the aborigines 

 under very severe penalties; but the Chinese defy 

 it, and add to the offence by supplying the opium 

 in a most deadly form, adulterated with the ashes 

 from opium pipes already smoked. Indulgence 

 in this poisonous drug is even more fatal to the 

 blacks than spirits, but they readily acquire the 

 craving for it, and will do anything for a small 

 quantity. 



