384 



AUSTRALASIA. 



progress of Christian civilisation. But after ten years of residence in this place of 

 exile more than three-fourths of the natives had perished. Then pity was taken on 

 them, and the twelve surviving men, twenty-two women, and ten children, nearly 

 all half-breeds, were removed to a narrow promontory at Oyster Cove, near Hobart, 

 and placed under some keepers, who enriched themselves at their expense. 



In 1860 the Tasmanian race was reduced to sixteen souls ; in 1869 the last 

 man perished, and in 1876 " Queen " Truganina, popularly known as Lalla Rookh, 

 followed her people to the grave. But there still survived a few half-castes, and 



Fig. 162. — Lalla Rookh, the Last Tasmanian. 



in 1884 a so-called " Tasmanian " woman obtained a grant of land from the 

 colonial parliament. 



On the AustraKan mainland, also, most of the coast tribes have disappeared. 

 Of the one thousand five hundred natives occupying the Botany Bay district in 

 1788 not a single descendant can be found, and in the settled districts where a 

 few of the aborigines still linger, all tribal grouping has been effaced. At the 

 census of 1881 the total number in the colonised territory was estimated at some 

 thirty thousand. Since then there has been an apparent increase in some of the 

 colonies, which is explained by the fact that the frontiers have been enlarged so 

 as to include a few hundred tribes till recently independent, and consequently not 

 included in the earlier returns. Nevertheless, some recent statistics seem to show 



