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WRONGS OF 
beard of since. No legal evidence was attainable in 
this latter case. There is no doubt the charges pre- 
ferred were true, for in the course of my inquiries 
on my late expedition, I found a tribe, a section of 
the Jarcoorts, totally extinct, and it was affirmed by 
the natives that Taylor had destroyed them. The 
tribes are rapidly diminishing. The 4 Coligans,’ 
once a numerous and powerful people, inhabiting 
the fertile region of Lake 4 Colac/ are now reduced, 
all ages and sexes, under forty, and these are still 
on the decay. The Jarcoorts, inhabiting the 
country to the west of the great lake ‘ Caranger- 
mite,’ once a very numerous and powerful people, 
are now reduced to under sixty. But time would 
fail, and I fear it would be deemed too prolix, were 
I to attempt to particularise in ever so small a 
degree, the previous state, condition, and declension 
of the original inhabitants of so extensive a pro- 
vince/’ 
Upon the same subject, His Honour the Super- 
intendent of Port Phillip thus writes : — 
“ On this subject, I beg leave to remark that great 
impediments evidently do interpose themselves in 
the way of instituting proper judicial inquiry into 
the causes and consequences of the frequent acts of 
collision between the settlers and the aboriginal 
natives, and into the conduct of the settlers on such 
occasions. I am quite ready to lament with the 
Protectors, that numerous as the cases have unfor- 
tunately been in which the lives of the Aborigines 
