344 NOTES 



was an ideal, and the breeding of sheep a passion. The per- 

 fecting of the merino was his objective. The small lot MoArthiir 

 purchased at the sale at Kew of King George the Third's merinos 

 was not of the best quality. It was of a different tj^De from 

 the lot purchased at the Cape. The English merinos were of 

 the Negretti type, and derived their name from Count Negretti. 

 There is an account of the sale of the King's merinos in Burfitt, 

 pp. 37-41. 



CHAPTER XIV 



THE PASTORALIST AND THE CONVICT 



The figures stating the proportion in the text of convicts to 

 free evidently need sifting, and perhaps the exact number of 

 convicts transported is unattainable. In ten years (1834-43), 

 says Rusden, " 39,844 deep-dyed offenders were transported 

 to Australia " {History of Australia, fu>st ed., ii. 134). After 

 Romilly had purged the English criminal law the convicts must 

 have been of a thoroughly criminal type. 



CHAPTER XV 



THE PASTORALIST AND THE NATIVES 



All other causes — abduction of gins, punishment for theft of 

 sheep or mutilation of cattle or sheep — were incidental. The 

 deep, ever-acting, irremovable cause of the persistent enmity 

 of the blacks was, everywhere and always, the advance of settle- 

 ment, with the inevitable consequence that the tribes in occupa- 

 tion were either driven away or destroyed. It is idle to say 

 that the natives had no rights of property in the soil they did 

 not cultivate. Writing in 1832, Mr. Scott Nind affirms that 

 the blacks " are very jealous as to encroachments on their 

 property, and the land is divided into districts, which are the 

 property of families and individuals." So strong is the practice 

 of inheritance in the female line that sons " have a right to hunt 

 in the country from which their mother was brought " {Journal 

 of Royal Geographical Society, i. 44). According to another 

 authoritjs Dr. Lang, they had tribal, family, and indi\ndual 

 rights. The territory of each tribe is subdivided among the 

 different families of which it consists, " and the proprietor of 

 any particular subdivision has the exclusive right to direct when 

 it shall be hunted over, or the grass burned, or the wild animals 

 destroyed." * The place-name mentioned at the birth of the 

 child is " the child's own covuitry, its true home, where in future 



* Lanq, Queenaland, p. 336. 



