PASTORAL MARRIAGE 267 



public opinion, the pioneer squatters in several of the 

 Australasian colonies gratified their needs or their 

 passions in an illicit or a vicious manner. The squatters 

 of New South Wales and Tasmania often placed the 

 convict women employed on their stations by the side 

 of their hearth, and their stockmen did not fail to follow 

 their example. A still more questionable form of the 

 relationship arose in colonies where there were no convict 



women. " Mr. , of , near me," writes one of 



the Victorian pioneers, " kept a harem for himself and 

 his men. The consequence was that he, like a good 

 many more, had to sell out " ; the " harem " of course 

 consisted of black women.* Both masters and men 

 grew dissolute through the power they possessed of 

 taking black women as their wives and concubines. 

 The practice was not confined to Victoria. Not a few 

 instances are known, where Enghsh gentlemen, happily 

 married to women of their own class, have become so 

 infatuated with black women as to make them their 

 mistresses and ultimately their wives and the mothers 

 of their children. 



Partly, it may be, from old attachm^ent, but also to 

 maintain a distinctive feature of a caste or class, some 

 of the squatters went " home " (back to England) for 

 wives, as those ancient pastoralists Isaac went, and 

 Jacob was sent, to their relatives in the distant Chaldaean 

 birthplace of the tribe for the same purpose. "I am 

 not surprised at your returning to Britain," WTites one 

 squatter to another, " be it for weal or woe. As for 

 me, I suppose, as I made a fool of myself by going home 

 for a wife, I must also make a fool of myself a second 

 time by going home again with her." f 



* Letters from Victorian Pioneers, p. 31. 

 t Ibid., p. 141. 



