148 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
without some of them constantly with me as 
domestics. 
To the advantages of private opportunities of 
acquiring a knowledge of their character were 
added, latterly, the facilities afforded by my holding 
a public appointment in South Australia, in the midst 
of a district more densely populated by natives than 
any in that Colony, where no settler had ventured 
to locate, and where, prior to my arrival in October 
1841, frightful scenes of bloodshed, rapine, and hos- 
tility between the natives and parties coming over- 
land with stock, had been of frequent and very 
recent occurrence. 
As Resident Magistrate of the Murray District, 
I may almost say, that for the last three years I 
have lived with the natives. My duties have fre- 
quently taken me to very great distances up the 
Murray or the Darling rivers, when I was generally 
accompanied only by a single European, or at most 
two, and where, if attacked, there was no possibility 
of my receiving any human aid. I have gone 
almost alone among hordes of those fierce and blood- 
thirsty savages, as they were then considered, and 
have stood singly amongst them in the remote and 
trackless wilds, when hundreds were congregated 
around, without ever receiving the least injury or 
insult. 
In my first visits to the more distant tribes I 
found them shy, alarmed, and suspicious, but soon 
learning that I had no wish to injure them, they 
