27 



of a contagious kind, but if that be so the question must be 

 asked why did not the outbreak in Sydney take place until 

 the lapse of so long a period after the arrival of the ships 

 which, under this view, must have contained the germs of 

 the disorder ? For, as mentioned, it did not appear until 

 fifteen months after the ships had actually left Sydney or 

 seventeen months after they had left the Cape, since which 

 time there had been, according to Tench's statement, no dis- 

 ease on board. 



Mr. Curr (3, I., 226) attempts to account for these facts 

 by supposing that the disease emanated from clothes that 

 had become infected on board and had been distributed to 

 the natives. It is well known that disease may be, and is, 

 distributed in this way, even after a long interval has elapsed 

 since the articles were exposed to contagion, and that may 

 possibly be the explanation in this case. Still, under the 

 particular circumstances of the case, one would like to know 

 what was done with the infected clothes during all this long 

 period, which included the time occupied by the voyage from 

 the Cape when the clothes must have been on board and pos- 

 sibly worn. To make the circumstances fit the case one must 

 suppose that these clothes had been put aside, and kept 

 away from human contact, for nearly a year and a half before 

 they were distributed. Otherwise why did not they com- 

 municate infection to the white folk who handled, or wore, 

 them in the interval ? Or if they were given to the natives 

 soon after the arrival of the ships why did the disease not 

 break out earlier among them ? 



These are questions that cannot be answered and it 

 would seem impossible to pursue the inquiry further in this 

 direction. We may conclude, therefore, that the Sydney out- 

 break may have originated from the English ships, but that 

 it is not absolutely proved. 



A little later we shall consider another possible origin, 

 also of an extrinsic nature, but before doing so it will be 

 desirable to trace, as far as may be possible, the march of 

 events subsequent to the Sydney outbreak in relation to this 

 or to some similar disease affecting the natives in other parts 

 of Australia. 



Subsequent Epidemics. 



In this part of my inquiry I am much indebted to an 

 interesting chapter of Curr's "Australian Race" (vol. i., 

 chap, viii.), on the diseases and decline of the aboriginal 

 race, in which the author summarizes all the information he 

 could gain either from published books or from correspondents 

 in various parts of the country. Some details on this subject 

 are also given by Brough Smyth (28, I., 253). 



