THE PASTORALIST AND THE NATIVE 125 



resisted by the blacks as invasions are resisted. Wave 

 after wave of settlement flowed along the shores of 

 rivers and the banks of creeks, and occupied ground 

 where the nomadic blacks dwelt, and drove away the 

 game on which they fed. Can we be surprised that 

 the plundered and expelled natives had recourse to 

 acts of war ? All the records are full of such facts and 

 events as belong to a state of war. Open that very 

 collection of letters from Victorian pioneers, and what 

 do we find ? On almost every page there are accounts 

 of depredations by the blacks, injuries inflicted on 

 cattle, and murders committed by them. Open it, 

 then, at page 190. Thus, in 1844, on one station, a 

 flock of sheep was driven away, and all the winter 

 " the natives were very troublesome." At another 

 station 1,000 sheep were lost, and a shepherd badly 

 speared. At another, the blacks stole, during the 

 winter, 800 sheep ; and there thefts of sheep were 

 continual. A fourth firm of squatters had 200 sheep 

 stolen, and in one mnter lost in all about 900 sheep. 

 Next year the losses of the settlers by robberies were 

 considerable, and one firm lost 1,000 sheep. But we 

 need not continue the monotonous record. A long 

 list of stations could be given in several provinces, 

 whence the runholders were driven away by the per- 

 sistent hostility of the blacks. 



Real and deep provocation there doubtless often was. 

 Thus, a settler on the Glenelg River, Victoria, reports 

 a " fearful loss of life " on the part of the " poor natives 

 by two heartless young vagabonds " left as overseers.* 

 There is abundant evidence, again, to show that the 

 black women were taken and kept, their husbands being 

 sometimes murdered to facilitate the rape. On the 

 other hand, the settlers asserted that the women either 

 voluntarily offered themselves or were offered by their 

 relatives in exchange for presents. f 



Cupidity on the part of the blacks was doubtless 



* Letters from Victorian Pioneers, p. 30. 

 t Ihid, 



