282 THE NATIVE BLACKFELLOW 



black's disposition. Other prevalent vices are the crimes 

 of infanticide, and the murder of the aged, cruelties to 

 which the blackfellow is sometimes driven by paucity of 

 food, not, I think, by a murderous disposition. While 

 the poor old people can toddle after the tribe they are 

 permitted to do so, and some fragments of food may be 

 thrown to them, but when, worn out with age and semi- 

 starvation, they can no longer keep up with the young and 

 active savages, they are left to their fate. Young children, 

 too, are left to perish in the desert. Sometimes the 

 mother's love for her little one induces her to linger behind 

 to care for the child her husband has ordained to die. 

 Then fearful is the beating she receives, and in such cases 

 the savage man may brain the infant with his waddy, but 

 as a rule blood is not actually shed. The black avoids 

 witnessing the death of his victims, and sometimes he 

 evinces no small affection for his offspring. The black 

 mother is invariably a good parent, and she has a most 

 pathetic custom of carrying about with her the bones of a 

 deceased child. These she often puts together with a 

 rapidity and correctness that would not shame a professor 

 of anatomy, and when the little skeleton is set up, she will 

 talk mother's loving nonsense to it by the hour at a 

 stretch. 



In his relationship with the white man, the Australian 

 black has often done splendid service as friend and 

 servant. He has been faithful and true in the hour of dire 

 peril ; and to his local knowledge and ability as a resource- 

 ful bushman some of our exploring expeditions have been 

 more beholden than they have acknowledged. 



It is very difficult to obtain information concerning the 

 past history of the aborigines. In my opinion, there is 

 but one race of them ; the so-called tribes are probably 

 family parties, more or less individually related to each 

 other. These parties or tribes consist of from twenty to 

 eighty persons each, women and children included, the 

 latter rarely exceeding an eighth of the whole ; and a tribe 

 has possession of a certain extent of territory, which is 

 never encroached on by the neighbouring tribes without 



