THE PASTORALIST AND THE NATIVE 123 



encamped near a station that was situated on Myall 

 Creek, close by a tributary of the Darling River in the 

 far north of New South Wales. They are described 

 as being, all of them, " inoffensive and friendly." 

 Returning to his station after a short absence, the 

 superintendent missed the natives. Riding about the 

 run, he soon found the charred and blackened remains 

 of about 30 of them. A ghastly narrative was elicited 

 from Mr. Hobbs's stockmen. One day, he related, 

 a band of armed whites had come from a distance to 

 the station with the avowed object of taking vengeance 

 on the blacks for some alleged wrongs they had com- 

 mitted. The stockman, a convict, as were most mem- 

 bers of the band, at once joined it, and together they 

 attacked and destroyed the greater number of the 

 natives. Ten or twelve of them were said to have 

 escaped, but these were next day chased by the whites 

 and to all appearance made away with. The only 

 provocation alleged was that the blacks had speared 

 some cattle twenty or thirty miles further down, and 

 it was not proven that they were the same blacks. 

 Sternly natural means, yet such as in elder days would 

 have been regarded as supernatural proofs, led to the 

 finding of the remains of the victims. As " the Cranes 

 of Ibycus " in Schiller's impressive poem sheeted home 

 a murderer's guilt, so hundreds of birds of prey soaring 

 over the spot guided the searchers. Seven men — not 

 squatters, as, I think, Mrs. Campbell Praed calls them, 

 but convict servants — were tried for the crime, found 

 guilty, and promptly hanged. Need we say that the 

 resolute Sir George Gipps was then Governor ? What 

 other Governor that New South Wales has had would 

 have dared to outrage the sensibilities of the colonists 

 by hanging white men for the murder of mere blacks ? 

 A " most wise judge — a Daniel come to judgment," 

 Sir W. W. Burton, long afterwards that President of 

 the Legislative Council who, with nineteen members 

 resigned their seats and solemnly left the Council 

 chamber because the Council had been swamped with 



