34 A NATURALIST IN TASMANIA ch. 



native problem was at its most acute stage, and 

 starting in the same year as the futile and absurd 

 ' drive ', it was Robinson's achievement practi- 

 cally single-handed and without bloodshed to bring 

 in all the remaining natives and settle them on 

 Flinders Island in Bass's Strait. Robinson was 

 accompanied on his expeditions sometimes by a 

 few white companions and always by some friendly 

 blacks, of whom the faithful Truganini, who had 

 lived among the settlers ever since she was a girl, 

 and was the last of the race to survive, was always 

 one. Robinson, although often in danger of his 

 life, seems to have entirely won the confidence 

 of the natives, whose dialects he could talk with 

 ease, and although there was a touch of charlatan- 

 ism in his character — which, perhaps, did not come 

 amiss to the childish intellects of the savages — he 

 seems to have had a genuine affection for his black 

 proteges, who in their turn venerated him almost 

 as a god. It is surely a complete vindication of 

 the placable and mild disposition of the natives, 

 that, when once they had joined Robinson's camp 

 of their own freewill, they never attempted any 

 treachery against one who, after all, belonged to 

 a hated race which had treated them with the 

 utmost brutality and callousness. 



The total number of natives transported to 

 Flinders Island was 203, truly a miserable remnant 

 of the race, thinned by war, not only with the 

 white settlers, but with one another, owing to the 

 disturbance of the territorial arrangements which 



