370 
NUMBERS. 
in what appeared to me an arid and foodless 
desert. 
Captain Grey has observed in other parts of Aus- 
tralia, the same ingenuity and stealth manifested by 
them in either cloaking their movements, or conceal- 
ing their presence, until circumstances rendered it 
in their opinion no longer necessary to preserve this 
concealment, vol. i. p. 147, he says : “ Imme- 
diately numbers of other natives burst upon my 
sight, each tree, each rock, seemed to give forth its 
black denizen as if by enchantment ; a moment 
before the most solemn silence pervaded these woods, 
we deemed that not a human being moved within 
miles of us, and now they rang with savage and 
ferocious yells, and fierce armed men crowded 
around us on every side, bent on our destruction.” 
N or is it less difficult to arrive at the number of 
the population in those districts which are occupied 
by Europeans. In some, the native tribes rarely 
frequent the stations, in others, portions only of the 
different tribes are to be found ; some belong to the 
district and others not. In all there is a difficulty in 
ascertaining the exact number of any tribe, or the 
precise limits to which their territory extends in 
every direction around. Even could these parti- 
culars be accurately obtained in a few localities, they 
would afford no data for estimating the population 
of the whole, as the average number of inhabitants 
to the square mile, would always vary according to 
the character of the country and the abundance 
of food 
