WITH EUROPEANS. 
4J7 
Western Australia the same process is gradually 
but certainly going on among the tribes most in 
contact with the Europeans. In South Australia it 
is the same ; and short as is the time that this pro- 
vince has been occupied as a British Colony, the 
results upon the Aborigines are but too apparent in 
their diminished numbers, in the great disproportion 
that has been produced between the sexes, and in 
the large preponderance of deaths over births. A 
miserably diseased condition, and the almost total 
absence of children, are immediate consequences of 
this contact with Europeans. The increase or dimi- 
nution of the tribes can only be ascertained exactly 
in the different districts, by their being regularly 
mustered, and lists kept of the numbers and 
proportion of the sexes, births, deaths, &c. 
In April, 1843, or only six and a half years after 
South Australia had first been occupied, the Pro- 
tector of the Aborigines in Adelaide ascertained that 
the tribes, properly belonging to that neighbourhood, 
consisted of 150 individuals, in the following pro- 
portions, namely, 70 men, 39 women, and 41 
children. Now, at the Murray, among a large num- 
ber of natives who, until 1842, were comparatively 
isolated from Europeans, and among whom are fre- 
secretof acknowledging their participation in such acts, and only 
considered them a just retaliation for wrongs done to them or 
their progenitors. On removal to the island they appeared to 
forget all these facts ; they could not of course fail to remember 
them, but they never recurred to them.” 
VOL. II. 2 E 
