260 BUSH WANDEEINGS. 



ciples of European civilization — swearing and drinking. 

 It is true he eats better food, wears better clothes, and 

 sleeps in better dwellings. But where is his home ? "Who 

 ■will be his sister, his mother, his brother ? "Who will 

 ally herself as wife to his dark skin ? Can he ever know 

 the sweetness of a child's love ? No ! He soon tires of 

 our food, our work, our confined habitations, our heart- 

 less ridicule, and hastens back to his camp-fire, to find a 

 friend, to feel himself a man, to dwell with those that can 

 love him. Attempts were formerly made to convert them, 

 "which always failed ; but this was long before the country 

 was peopled as it is now. Heathens or no heathens, how- 

 ever, the life of the savage here is perhaps as free from 

 reproach as that of many of their Christian neighbours. 



"When I camped at Mordialloc, I lived on very neigh- 

 bourly terms with the " Bomerang " tribe, for they 

 generally had their "miamies" close to my hut; and 

 as I never made too free with them, or gave them a 

 promise I did not intend to keep, I was a bit of a 

 favourite with them. Like most other savages, they 

 strictly imitate the white man in all his vices ; and this 

 tribe is fast paying the penalty ; for since I knew it first, 

 more than two-thirds have been swept away by disease 

 and intemperance, and in a few years it will exist only 

 in name. It is melancholy to see a whole race of beings 

 thus disappear, without any apparent cause. There is 

 no prostration of physical strength, or mental activity ; 

 they wither in the prime of life, and sink into the grave, 

 as though a blight had fallen on them. 



