200 White, Expedition to Islands of Bass Strait. [isf April 



spirit of the warriors of old, who won their brides by the prowess 

 of arms. Amongst these early adventurers there were some 

 startling life-histories, now almost forgotten. From these strange 

 mixtures of blood there has sprung a race of half-castes ranging 

 through every shade of colour from ebony to the fairest. To-day 

 this primitive and peaceful community consists of between 

 200 and 300 souls, has been isolated for many years, and knows 

 little of the outside world. They have one great annual harvest 

 in the Mutton-Birds, which come to maturity about March, and 

 many thousands of these birds are captured every year, chiefly 

 from Chappell and Babel Islands. Two-thirds of the harvest 

 are sent to the Tasmanian market, after being plucked, cleaned, 

 and salted down in casks. During the reaping of the harvest 

 every soul leaves the settlement, from the aged to the baby — 

 even the dogs and fowls accompany their owners. The remain- 

 ing third of the salted birds is kept for the year's consumption, 

 but the crop is generally so heavily mortgaged ahead for 

 supplies of flour, tea, and sugar, that the birds of the one season 

 are eaten up long before the new season's harvest of birds is 

 reaped. At the time of our visit to Cape Barren Island very 

 few families had any meat left, and they were living a hand-to- 

 mouth existence. It was sad to see the poor children gathering 

 a breakfast of raw limpets from the rocks and pig-face weed 

 {Mesembryanthemuiii) from the sandy shore. Tasmania not only 

 has a social problem to solve, but a duty to perform towards 

 this settlement. So far she appears to have done little to 

 grapple with it. The people have many traits of their aboriginal 

 ancestors, and the black hunter's plan of feeding bounteously in 

 time of plenty and starving patiently till the next kill. They 

 can only be stirred to industry by example and instruction, yet 

 they are fine boat-builders and expert boatmen, and should 

 make a fine race of fishermen. Now they do little fishing, with 

 the exception of searching amongst the kelp for a species of 

 fish that haunts this giant seaweed. It seems hard that for the 

 want of instruction the children should be born and reared to 

 inherit the same hopeless, helpless future. 



On the morning we landed on Cape Barren Island a glorious 

 view spread itself out towards the beautiful island of Flinders ; 

 the shoal water, which gave forth all the shades of green and 

 blue, sparkled in the sunlight between the two islands, with a 

 fine background in the lofty, ru^^'ged peaks at Flinders, partly 

 shrouded in a purple mist, which put me more in mind of South 

 African scenery than any I have seen elsewhere. This pleasing 

 scene soon brought our artists into action, and they were busy 

 for some time with the blending of colours. The visit of the 

 Manawatu was a red-letter day in Cape Barren Island, for not 

 only was she the largest steamer that had visited the settlement, 

 but the kindly doctors on board visited all the sick on the 



