[Sidenote: Vide Return, p. 60.]
Mr. Thomas, who has for 20 years been the guardian of the tribes
contiguous to Melbourne, furnishes a statement, showing during that
period 210 deaths as compared with 28 births, and, as he adds in a
note, that of the children born most died before the first month was
over, it cannot be expected that these tribes, now reduced to only 35
individuals in all, will be long in existence.
Making every allowance, indeed, for the effects of European vices,
and especially of intemperance, by which quarrels are fomented, and
exposure to cold and damp and disease produced, there is, it must be
confessed, something mysterious in that deterioration of the savage
which succeeds the introduction of civilization,—and which can hardly
be more forcibly described than in the language of the old man quoted
by Mr. Goodwin,―“before white fellow came, black fellow could run like
emu, but now supposing big one run, then big one tired, and plenty
heart jump about.”
Physical prostration, in fact, seems to follow the attempt to imitate
the customs of civilized society; and, as I had abundant opportunity of
observing in British Guiana among the Indians, the wearing of clothes
and adoption of a more settled mode of life detracts from skill in
hunting or fishing without imparting sufficient knowledge of or taste
for agricultural pursuits to afford a livelihood in exchange.