37 



in specified localities until we come to Moorundie.ua) At this 

 place, which is 3 miles below Blanchetown, Eyre was stationed 

 as Resident Magistrate from 1841-4, and he alludes to the 

 existence at some previous period of a disease very similar 

 to small-pox, and leaving similar marks upon the face 

 (18, II., 379), though he himself had never seen a case. He 

 states further that it is reported to have come from the 

 eastward. 



The Moorundie natives are, as have been mentioned, the 

 northern neighbours of the Narrinyeri, and we can see, there- 

 fore, the facilities that would have been afforded for the 

 transmission of the disease along the broad highway of the 

 river, whose banks were frequented by a numerous native 

 population. We know, indeed, that they navigated the river 

 in their mungos, or bark canoes, the last remaining example 

 •of which is now in the National Museum. 



That it did, however, reach and decimate not only the 

 Narrinyeri, but the adjacent Adelaide tribe, there can be no 

 doubt; to this the written testimony of early writers such as 

 Mr. Taplin, Messrs. Teichelmann and Schurmann, and others, 

 as well as the traditions of the natives and oral state- 

 ments/ 19 ) bear witness; and although, as we have seen, the 

 actual circumstances of the interments at Swanport do not 

 afford any conclusive evidence that this place, more than any 

 other, had any special association with the incidence of the 

 disease, we shall, I think, in our minds regard its numerous 

 remains as a silent testimony of the event. 



When, however, we endeavour to fix a date for this 

 calamity, possibly the one great event of their lives, we are 

 on more uncertain ground. Still, there is a certain amount 

 of evidence bearing on the question which we will examine. 



We have some reason to believe (3, I., 218) that an out- 

 break occurred at Swan Hill, on the Murray, about 1807, 

 though it must be admitted that this date, based as it is upon 



(18) G. F. Angas states (30, I., 123; and II., 226) that he 

 had himself "seen two aged men from high up the Murray, 

 beyond the great North- West Bend, who were deeply marked 

 with the effects of smallpox." He also states that the natives 

 of South Australia spoke of the disease as having come down 

 the Murray from the country far to the eastward, and almost 

 depopulated the hanks of that river for more than 1,000 miles. 

 For these references I am indebted to Mr. T. Gill, I.S.O. 



(19) Since the above was written I have a letter (May 17, 1911) 

 from Mr. Paul Martin, now of Appila-Yarrowie, in which he 

 informs me that when, as a boy, he lived at Strathalbyn from 

 1845-52 and subsequently on the Lower Finniss, he saw numbers 

 of pock-marked blacks, and one of them, an intelligent man then 

 about 30-35 years of age, told him that it came from the east 

 (cf. the statements of Eyre and Angas ante). 



