May 10, 1858.] WILSON’S JOURNEY IN NORTH-WEST AUSTRALIA. 213 
better adapted to stand exposure to the extreme heat of the sun and the 
vicissitudes of the climate. If the slave-trade were still in its flourishing 
state, there would be a ready mode of evading this difficulty, for we should 
then only have to open a communication with the slavers of the African 
coasts and the piratical rovers about Borneo, Celebes, and other places in the 
Malayan Archipelago, and obtain as many human implements as enterprising 
individuals might desire ; but fortunately this once highly prized traffic no 
longer exists as a recognized and legitimate trade. We might obtain Chinese 
labourers, perhaps, sufficient in numbers and with hardihood adequate to cope 
with a tropical climate ; but if we are to trust to the statements given in the 
newspapers from time to time, we cannot but conclude that there are already 
too many of that exclusive and singular race in Australia, and rather than 
augment their number, a counterpoise is needed to keep their arrogance 
within bounds. They are, by all accounts, a people whose habits never can 
harmonise with those of Europeans ; they can never become loyal subjects 
of Great Britain, but always form, wherever they go, a community of their 
own — an imperium in imperio , in fact. Are we then to view this land of 
mineral, pastoral, and arable capabilities at a distance, as a mere curiosity, 
like the mountains in the moon, or the belts of Jupiter, or the ring of Saturn, 
and turn it to no account, and this, too, whilst it is within our clutch, 
forming part of the dominions of Great Britain, and of the inheritance of our 
descendants? Is it for this that toilsome and costly expeditions have been 
organized and sent forth just to say veni , vidi , and -then to leave our hopeful 
discovery as we found it, to be possessed by a wretched set of unredeemed 
and irreclaimable savages, who turn these natural advantages at their disposal 
to no account, but live upon snakes and such other reptiles as are witless 
enough to allow themselves to be caught napping within reach of their 
bumerangs and spears, and girdle themselves with belts in order that they 
may take in or let out a reef, according to the state of their larder ? I think 
you will answer, Certainly not. The plan which I think we ought to adopt 
is to make in this tract a penal settlement for natives of India, and the time 
is now most fitting for giving effect to this arrangement. We have had a 
tremendous rebellion in India. We have slaughtered, and our countrymen 
and women and children have been slaughtered, to a most fearful extent ; 
and though I have not a word to say in behalf of those who have imbrued 
their hands in the blood of the innocent, helpless, and unarmed, yet many, 
I feel assured, there are amongst those now in arms against us who have 
been merely playing the game of follow-my-leader, and had in the origin no 
notion whatever that things would have come to such a frightful pass. Those 
who know anything of the natives of India, and particularly of the class of 
whom the Bengal army was composed, must be aware that a very large 
portion consists of what the French call gobemouches , a set of credulous 
-gabies, without innate mischief in their composition, who go to stare at a 
•spectacle just as the dirty boys in London go to see Punch beating and 
killing his wife, but without any desire to assist, aid, or abet in the cruelties, 
atrocities, and murders perpetrated. Now, I confess I should be very sorry 
to see these people indiscriminately put to death. Down with the Budmashes ! 
Down with the actual murderers, or the participators in any of the wanton 
atrocities committed ; but wherever we can winnow the simple Tomashabins , 
or sight-seers, from the mass, let them be preserved as the nucleus of the 
colony I suggest. They would be most admirably suited to inhabit the tract 
of country so highly spoken of in Northern and North-Western Australia, 
which is so peculiarly adapted to their constitutions. They are in general 
accustomed to agricultural pursuits ; some few are shepherds ; and they would 
soon become habituated to their new kind of life, especially as the climate 
seems to be, as nearly as we can judge, just what they have been inured to 
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