[There is a touching interest in the following narrative of the surrender
of certain tribes of the aborigines of Van Diemen's Land to the British
authorities. Some time since a war of extermination was commenced against
them by the colonists; but, happily for humanity, this atrocious attack,
which future historians may varnish over with "civilization," was a signal
failure; and the poor, simple creatures were still left to enjoy the woods
and caves and painted skins of savage life; not, however, without having
fiercely retaliated upon the colonists for the cruel treatment which they
experienced.]
The Oyster Bay and Big River tribes, the most sanguinary in the island,
have surrendered themselves to Mr. Robinson, by whose conciliatory
intervention the desirable event has been mainly brought about. On the 7th
of January, Mr. Robinson made his triumphant entry into Hobart Town with
his party of blacks, amounting in all to forty. They walked very leisurely
along the road, followed by a large pack of dogs, and were received by the
inhabitants on their entry into town with the most lively curiosity and
delight. Soon after their arrival they walked up to the Government House,
and were introduced to his Excellency, and the interview that took place
was truly interesting. They are delighted at the idea of proceeding to
Great Island, where they will enjoy peace and plenty uninterrupted. The
great susceptibility which they one and all evinced of the influence of
music when the band struck up, which Colonel Logan had purposely ordered
down, clearly showed the numerous spectators the power of this agent of
communication, even in the savage breast. After, in the greatest good
humour, and with an evident desire to make themselves agreeable, going
through various feats of their wonderful dexterity, they proceeded on
board the Swan River packet, until the Tamar is ready to proceed with them
to Great Island. The women were frightfully ornamented with human bones
hung round them in various fantastic forms, even to the rows of teeth and
skulls. Some of these were the remains of enemies, and white persons whom
they had killed, but more as the mementos of the affection which they bore
to the husband or children whom they had lost. They each carried a handful
of spears. They wore the usual kangaroo skin cloak thrown over the back or
shoulder, and thickly smeared with red ochre and grease. Their hair as
well as skin was also thickly coated with the same, the hair being
carefully dressed or formed by its help into neat little knots or globules
all round the head. One of the men has lost his arm, being the same who
about two years ago was caught in the rat trap that happened to be set in
the flour cask in Mr. Adey's stock-keeper's hut. They surrendered to Mr.
Robinson (who, however, very prudently did not take possession of them)
six stand of arms, which they had taken from the whites they had murdered,
or stolen from the huts. Three of them were ready loaded, and the muzzles
carefully stuffed with pieces of blanket, and one is the same which was so
recently borne by the late unfortunate Mr. Parker. The inside of several
of their bark huts, which Mr. Robinson entered, was very ingeniously
ornamented with rude delineations of kangaroos, emus, and other animals.
The removal of these blacks will be of essential benefit both to
themselves and the colony. The large tracts of pasture that have so long
been deserted, owing to their murderous attacks on the shepherds and the
stockhuts, will now be available, and a very sensible relief will be
afforded to the flocks of sheep that had been withdrawn from them, and
pent up on inadequate ranges of pasture--a circumstance which indeed has
tended materially to impoverish the flocks and keep up the price of
butcher's meat.
The dogs which these poor people have nursed and bred up in order to
assist them in hunting the kangaroo, have latterly become so numerous and
wild as to be a very serious and alarming nuisance to the settlers,
committing on many farms nightly ravages on their flocks. In the
neighbourhood of Benlomond they are particularly troublesome, and
are so wild and savage as to set even men at defiance. Notwithstanding
this, however, the numbers of the kangaroo seem daily and rapidly to
increase. Whether this arises from the latterly diminished slaughter among
them, owing to the decrease of the blacks who formerly fed upon them, or
from the effects of the Dog Act, which induced many to destroy their dogs
and to desist from the chase, or from the relish which the animal itself
has acquired for the corn and other artificial food it finds upon the
cultivated farms, we cannot say, but certain it is, that not only patches,
but whole acres of corn in many situations are this year destroyed by
their nightly inroads, coming as they do in droves of fifties and hundreds.
As an instance we may mention that on Mr. Gunn's farm at the Coal River
alone, a fine field of five acres of wheat has lately been completely
eaten down by them. Many persons are in consequence falling on the
expedient of catching them in wires and pitfalls in order to diminish them.
The ravages committed by the opossums, in like manner, are almost equally
ruinous to the hopes of the farmer, in addition to the attacks of
bandicoots, kangaroo rats, and the other almost innumerable (and certainly
as yet unknown to naturalists) species of small quadrupeds that every
where inhabit the wild bush and underwood of this island. Mr. Nicholas, of
the Clyde, accompanied by his servant, lately, in the course of half a
dozen evenings, and within the range of a moderate-sized field, killed no
less than 340 of these opussums in the immediate vicinity of his own house.
[The beneficial result of this surrender need not be explained. The lives
and properties of the settlers will now be secure, and the wild natives
become useful members of society. The passing of man from the opposite
states of barbarism and civilization is one of the most pathetic episodes
in the drama of human life. In the _Morning Herald_, where we find the
above extract from a recent _Hobart Town Courier_, it is pertinently
observed, "When we find one of those natives of Van Diemen's Land had lost
an arm which had been torn off in a trap, and that the wound was healed,
the question naturally suggests itself, after all that we have heard of
late about 'anatomical science,' what is the science of the wilderness
that performed such a cure?" We fear it will puzzle the heads of all the
colleges in Europe to solve this problem.]
* * * * *