"Oh I see the monstrousness of man
When he looks out in an ungrateful shape."
--Timon of Athens.
The natives still strolled into Melbourne at the time of my arrival, and
for a couple of years or so after; but they were prohibited about the
time of the institution of the corporation, as their non-conformity in
attire--to speak in a decent way--their temptations from offers of drink
by thoughtless colonists, and their inveterate begging, began soon to
make them a public nuisance. But aboriginal ways did not die at once.
The virtues or integrity of native life, as Strzelecki would phrase it,
struggled and survived for some few further years the strong upsetting
tide of colonial life.
Returning one night, about 1843, from dining with Mr. William Locke, an
old colonial merchant, at his pretty cottage and gardens on the Merri
Creek, between four and five miles out by the Sydney-road, I diverged
westwards from the purely bush track which as yet constituted that main
highway of the future Victoria. My object was to escape the swampy
vicinities of Brunswick, a village about three miles out of town,
consisting for a number of years of three small brick cottages,
adventurously rather than profitably built by an early speculator. With
firm footing and under a bright moon, I had a pleasant walk through what
is now the beautiful Royal Park, when, judging that I must be nearing
Melbourne, I perceived quite a number of lights ahead. There were as yet
no public lights to scattered little Melbourne in those early days,
although the new corporation, elected the year before, had got to work
by this time. So, what could it all be? I was not long in suspense. It
could only be a native encampment, and I was soon in its midst. The
natives at a distance, especially in the far western direction, were
still at times hostile, but all those who lived near town were already
quite peaceful, so that I had no hesitation in now entering their
encampment. I was most cordially received and shown over the different
wigwams, each of which had its fire burning. I was taken specially to
one occupied by a poor fellow who, under native war laws, had had his
kidney-fat wrenched out and eaten by his foes. He showed me the wound,
which, however, had now healed up. But he himself had never recovered,
being sadly weak and death-like, as one who had but little more to do
with this busy world.
The last great native demonstration near Melbourne, and, indeed, so far
as I can recollect, the last of its kind within the colony, took place
about a mile north-east of the town, in the middle of 1844. This was a
grand corrobboree, arranged for amongst themselves by surrounding
tribes, including the still considerable tribe of the River Goulburn.
This was, as it were, one last aboriginal defiance, hurled in despair
from the expiring native cause against the too-victorious colonial
invasion. We of the town had heard of the proposed exhibition, and many,
including myself, went out to see it. There were present seven hundred
aborigines of all ages and both sexes. The performances were chiefly by
the younger men, in bands of fifties, for the respective tribes, while
the females, in lines by themselves, beat the time, and gave what they
no doubt considered to be music.