“Nothing more to say O miss.”

ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIAN LOVE

The founders of the Australian race, Curr believes, were Africans, and may have arrived in one canoe.  The distance from Africa to Australia is, however, great, and there are innumerable details of structure, color, custom, myth, implements, language, etc., which have led the latest authorities to conclude that the Australian race was formed gradually by a mixture of Papuans, Malayans, and Dravidians of Central India.[151] Topinard has given reasons for believing that there are two distinct races in Australia.  However that may be, there are certainly great differences in the customs of the natives.  As regards the relations of the sexes, luckily, these differences are not so great as in some other respects, wherefore it is possible to give a tolerably accurate bird’s-eye view of the Australians as a whole from this point of view.

PERSONAL CHARMS OF AUSTRALIANS

Once in awhile, in the narrative of those who have travelled or sojourned among Australians, one comes across a reference to the symmetrical form, soft skin, red lips, and white teeth of a young Australian girl.  Mitchell in his wanderings saw several girls with beautiful features and figures.  Of one of these, who seemed to be the most influential person in camp, he says (I., 266): 

“She was now all animation, and her finely shaped mouth, beautiful teeth, and well-formed person appeared to great advantage as she hung over us both, addressing me vehemently,”

etc.  Of two other girls the same writer says (II., 93): 

“The youngest was the handsomest female I had ever seen amongst the natives.  She was so far from black that the red color was very apparent in her cheeks.  She sat before me in a corner of the group, nearly in the attitude of Mr. Bailey’s fine statue of Eve at the fountain, and apparently equally unconscious that she was naked.  As I looked upon her for a moment, while deeply regretting the fate of her mother, the chief, who stood by, and whose hand had been more than once laid upon my cap, as if to feel whether it were proof against the blow of a waddy, begged me to accept of her in exchange for a tomahawk!”

Eyre, another famous early traveller, writes on this topic (II., 207-208): 

“Occasionally, though rarely, I have met with females in the bloom of youth, whose well-proportioned limbs and symmetry of figure might have formed a model for the sculptor’s chisel.  In personal appearance the females are, except in early youth, very far inferior to the men.  When young, however, they are not uninteresting.  The jet black eyes, shaded by their long dark lashes, and the delicate and scarcely formed features of incipient womanhood give a soft and pleasing expression to a countenance that might often be