AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES. 69 



for the weakness of his frame, or to enable 

 him to maintain successfully the struggle for 

 existence. With many Savages it is a hard 

 struggle, despite senses of sight and hearing 

 trained by necessity so as almost to approach 

 the instincts of the lower animals ; despite 

 also all those powers of reasoning which, 

 however low, are yet peculiar to himself, and 

 separate him, as is confessed, by an impassable 

 gulf from the highest of the beasts. Many 

 of the Aborigines of Australia could do no 

 more at times than support a precarious 

 existence by scraping up roots, and eating 

 snakes and other reptiles. The rotten blubber 

 of a dead whale cast upon the beach was, 

 and is often, not only a luxury and a feast, 

 but deliverance from actual starvation. Sir 



