472 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



pared with which the earhest historical dates are but as 

 yesterday, in order to arrive at au epoch when the common 

 ancestors of these three well-marked types alone existed. 

 Even then we shall have made no perceptible approach to 

 the missing-link — the common ancestor of man and the 

 higher quadrumana. 



It has been estimated that when Australia was first 

 colonized by Europeans, the native population could not 

 much have exceeded 150,000. They have since greatly 

 diminished, owing to the occupation and settlement of all 

 the more fertile parts of the country, as well as from the 

 diseases and vices introduced among them by the convicts 

 and lower class of settlers. Notwithstanding all these 

 causes of depopulation, great numbers still roam over the 

 interior, and it is believed that they now amount to from 

 30,000 to 40,000 ; and as so much of the country they in- 

 habit is not of a nature to invite occupation by the white 

 race, it seems not improbable that the degraded Australians 

 may continue to exist long after the much higher Mahoris 

 of New Zealand and Eastern Polynesia have disappeared 

 as completely as have the lower Tasmanians. 



Mental and Moral Characteristics. 



The intellectual status of the Australian native has 

 been greatly depreciated by many writers, but more par- 

 ticularly by those who are most ignorant of him in his 

 native wilds, or who judge his mind solely by a reference 

 to his low state of material advancement. Those who 

 have lived much among the natives, however, often express 

 a different opinion. Sir Thomas Mitchell did not think 

 them by any means the lowest in the scale of humanity. 

 Mr. Eyre found them to be frank, open, and confiding, 

 and easy to make friends with ; and he declares that they 

 have been greatly misrepresented and traduced, and that 

 much of their assumed treachery and bloodthirstiness is 

 the result of the cruelty and ill-treatment of the settlers. 

 They often show great affection for their male offspring, 

 giving up to them the choicest food, carrying them when 

 they are weary, and lamenting their death for months, or 

 even for vears. 



