40 



evidence in favour of the view that there was more than one 

 period at which outbreaks occurred in South Australia. 



The conclusions stated in the foregoing paragraph have 

 been based upon facts and statements, often of a very in- 

 definite nature, that have been related in the preceding pages ; 

 but since they were reached they have, so far at least as they 

 relate to the date at which the epidemic occurred among the 

 Narrinyeri and their neighbours, received additional support 

 of a more precise kind than has generally been found avail- 

 able in this inquiry. In a paragraph in the South Aus- 

 tralian Register of July 5, 1911, the death is reported, at 

 Poltalloch, of the old black woman who was stated by Mrs. 

 Karpeny to have been her aunt ; whether this was the actual 

 relationship according to our nomenclature I cannot say. 

 The old woman, who was known to the whites as Jenny 

 Pongie (native name Clul-lul-owrie) , spoke English well and 

 retained her faculties almost to the last. She was, according 

 to her own statements, a grown woman when the epidemic 

 descended on her people, and, according to her account, it 

 came shortly after Captain Sturt's voyage down the Murray. 

 As this explorer reached the lakes on February 9, 1830, old 

 Jenny's evidence fixes the date with considerable clefiniteness 

 as occurring during the quinquennium mentioned, and pro- 

 bably, it would seem, in the earlier part of this period. 



She, too, spoke of a peculiar noise, as of wind, just 

 before the arrival of the disease, which she said came from 

 the east. < 22 ) The writer of the paragraph referred to, Mr. A. 

 Redman, superintendent of the Point Macleay Mission Sta- 

 tion — as, indeed, does another correspondent, Mr. G-. G. 

 Hacket — suggests that the noise might have been referable 

 to an earthquake, which is not improbable, for, writes the 

 latter, in the last event of that nature the earth tremors 



(22> If 3 then, we may consider Jenny's age as "a grown 

 woman" to have been sixteen at the date of the occurrence, 

 which, it might be claimed., represents female maturity in 

 her race, this old black would have been ninety-seven 

 years old at the time of her death; and if sixteen is 

 considered to be an unnecessarily early estimate of full 

 growth it would only be required that she should have been 

 three years older for her to have died a centenarian. And, indeed, 

 •.he was considered by the old residents to have passed the century 

 by three or four years. In any case she affords a remarkable 

 oxample of longevity in a race that has been assumed without 

 justification, if the evil influences of civilization are excluded, 

 not to be long-lived. Though at the time of my interview with 

 Mrs. Karpeny, recorded on a previous page, I did not attach 

 importance to the accuracy of her estimate of long periods 

 of years I must, with this confirmation and in justification ot 

 her statement, now say that on that occasion she told me her 

 aunt must be more than 100 years old. 



