THE PASTORALIST AND THE NATIVE 127 



another relates, the blacks who come from the interior 

 with the drovers cast contemptuous glances at their 

 brethren in chains. In the vast North-West, where 

 the white man found both goldfields and grassy prairies 

 to reward his discovery, alone in all Australia, the 

 blacks are able to hold their own with the invading 

 whites. 



The young pioneer squatters in the Northern Terri- 

 tory cheerfully encountered hardships and perils. Some 

 lay down and died of starvation. Others, and these 

 also not a few, died of thirst, and men have been found 

 lying face downwards in a dry creek, though they had 

 wealth in their pockets. Very many, alas ! were 

 murdered by the natives. We hear of the long list of 

 brave men who paved the way for future squatters and 

 planters. Page after page of Mrs. Daly's otherwise bright 

 volume on the Northern Territory is chilled with the 

 ghastly narratives of the crimes of the blacks, such as 

 the Daly River outrages in 1882, and again those 

 committed in 1886. In the latter year the newspapers 

 teemed with the " murderous outrages " committed by 

 the blacks, not only on the coast, but all over the back 

 blocks, or in the interior. The squatters took stern 

 reprisals. They learnt, the amiable lady informs us, 

 that summary jurisdiction (or massacre without investi- 

 gation and Avithout trial) was " the most efficient and 

 humane " way of dealing with these outbreaks. As a 

 detail, blacks were obliged to disarm before they ap- 

 proached a settlement.* 



One of the most distinctive uses that have been made 

 of the lower races by immigrant peoples is to treat 

 them as what they really are — beings raised some 

 degrees above the animals, but retaining animal char- 

 acteristics. Darwin tells us that the Pampas Indians 

 are employed by the Spaniards as bloodhounds have 

 been employed in Cuba — to track out persons who 

 endeavoured surreptitiously to pass by the custom- 

 house stations in the mountains. The Australian blacks 



♦ Daly, Northern Territory, pp. 324-5, 219-22, 226-7, 294-fl. 



