264 NEW SOUTH WALES. 



cumstance is usually ascribed to the many dry pools it has to fill on 

 its route, each of which must be overflowing before there can be any 

 farther current ; but this is hardly sufficient to account for the almost 

 sudden disappearance of a body of water sixty feet wide and two feet 

 deep, flowing at the rate of three or four miles per hour. It would 

 seem more probable that water may make its way into some of the 

 vast caverns that are known to exist in this limestone region. 



The population beyond the Blue Mountains amounts to ten thousand, 

 and it is supposed that there is little room for its farther increase, as 

 all the stations capable of supporting flocks are now occupied, and as 

 there is little or no chance for the extension of husbandry. Welling- 

 ton Valley, although it was considered when first discovered, as fitted 

 to be the granary of the district, has disappointed all such expectations; 

 and out of seven harvests which have occurred since the missionaries 

 commenced operations in it, six have wholly or partially failed. 



According to Mr. Hale, the number of languages in Australia has 

 been greatly exaggerated, and so far from every tribe having, as has 

 been asserted, a separate language, it appears that within the colony, 

 or from Port Macquarie on the north to Port Philip on the south, and 

 extending one hundred miles beyond Wellington to the west, com- 

 prising one-tenth of the whole continent, only six, or at most, eight 

 dialects are spoken, and that these are so similar in words and gram- 

 matical construction as to place their identity of origin beyond a doubt. 

 From some vocabularies of the language spoken at Swan river, it 

 appears that this similarity of words extends over the entire breadth 

 of the continent. On the other hand, at Port Essington and Melville 

 Island, on the northern coast, though the distance is not so great, the 

 dialect is represented as quite different, notwithstanding the physical 

 characteristics, habits, and customs, are said to be similar to those of 

 the other aborigines. It is not believed, however, that the difference 

 is as great as has been represented, and farther researches, it is 

 thought, will prove the accounts of it to have been exaggerated. The 

 language differs radically from that of the Malay tribes, being highly 

 artificial in its construction, abounding in consonanted sounds, and 

 remarkable for the number and variety of its grammatical inflexions. 

 The verbal modifications are as numerous and comprehensive as in 

 the American languages, but the manner of inflecting is different: the 

 root or radical verb (which is usually a monosyllable) is placed first, 

 and to this the various inflexions or modifying syllables are attached, 

 until they protract the word to an extraordinary length. Thus, in the 

 word Bumaroe, I strike, (Bu or Bum being the root.) Then comes 

 bumal-guaim, I have struck ; bumal-gurani, I struck yesterday ; bumal 



