62 



that's it; 



population into slavery. In these 

 excursions, they are led by their 

 chiefs, 13, 

 who syste- 

 matically 

 raise fleets 

 of boats 

 for pirati- 

 cal pur- 

 poses. 



Their 

 depreda- 

 tions have 

 been great- 

 ly checked 

 by Sir Jas. 

 Brooke the 

 British governor. 



Australia may either be consi- 

 dered a continent or an island, 

 since these differ only in size; 

 every mass of land, however large, 

 is finally surrounded by the ocean. 

 It will be best, therefore, to re- 

 gard some limit to the definition 

 of an island, adopting Borneo as 

 the largest, and speaking of Aus- 

 tralia as a continent. So large a 

 country must have been peopled 

 by varieties of men ; and it is 

 therefore difficult to describe the 

 Aborigines in one general detail. 



28-1. 



285. 



The native Australians, 14, have been re- 

 garded as allied t<> the Ethiopians; but Mr. 

 Crauford defines them as comprising a dis- 



tinct race. He says, " The east insular negro 

 is a distinct variety of the human species ; twa 

 skin is lighter than that of the African ; the 

 woolly hair grows in small tufts, and each hair 

 has a spiral twist ; the forehead is higher, the 

 nose much less depressed." 



The mode of life of the Abo- 

 rig ina I Au s Ira Hans , 15, is far more 



286. 



simple than that of the American 

 Indians. Their huts, 16, are of 

 the most primitive construction ; 

 their dresses the unwrought skins 

 of beasts ; a few spears, fish- 

 hooks, a kind of shield, and a 

 boomerang, constitute all their 

 implements and tools. 



The subsistence of the Australians is alike 

 scanty and filthy, consisting of the flesh of wild 

 animals, shell and other fish, worms and rep- 

 tiles, ants and ant-eggs, wild honey, roots, and 

 berries. Their treatment of females is brutal 

 in the extreme. Wive3 are not courted or pur- 

 chased, but are seized upon, stupefied by blows, 

 and then carried off to be the slaves of their 

 cruel masters ; and should a mother die with a 

 child at the breast, it is usual to bury the latter 

 alive with its dead parent. 



The grass tree {Xanthorrhea 

 hastalis), 18, is one of the curious 

 forms of vegetation which grows 

 in Australia. It thrives in a poor 

 soil, therefore it is one of those 

 plants which . give life to the 

 sterility of a great portion of 

 this barren soil. 



It is an endogenous [becoming larger from 

 internal growth] plant, and attains its height 

 from the annual decay of its long grass-like 

 leaves, from the centre of which proceeds the 



