GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE NATIVES.

The character and disposition of the natives may be gathered from the foregoing journal of our progress along the river.  It seldom happened that I was particularly engaged with a map, a drawing, or a calculation, but I was interrupted by them, or respecting them.  It was evident that our presents had the worst effect, for although they were given with every demonstration of goodwill on our part, the gifts seemed only to awaken on theirs a desire to destroy us, and to take all we had.  While sitting in the dust with them, conformably to their custom, often have they examined my cap, evidently with no other view than to ascertain if it would resist the blow of a waddy.  Then they would feel the thickness of my dress and whisper together, their eyes occasionally glancing at their spears and clubs.  The expression of their countenances was sometimes so hideous that after such interviews I have found comfort in contemplating the honest faces of the horses and sheep; and even in the scowl of the patient ox I have imagined an expression of dignity when he may have pricked up his ears, and turned his horns towards these wild specimens of the lords of creation.  Travellers in Australian deserts will find that such savages cannot remain at rest when near, but are ever ready and anxious to strip them by all means in their power of everything, however useless to the natives.  It was not until we proceeded en vainqueur that we knew anything like tranquillity on the Darling; and I am now of opinion that to discourage at once the approach of such natives would tend more to the safety of an exploring party than presenting them with gifts.  These rovers of the wilds seem to consider such presents as the offerings of fear and weakness; and I attribute much of their outrageous conduct to such mistaken notions and their incorrigible covetousness, against which the best security, unfortunately for them and us, appeared to be to keep them at a distance.

The further we descended the river the more implacably savage we found the blacks.  I have already remarked that the more ferocious had not lost their front teeth, and that those we had seen on the Upper Darling had all lost one tooth.  Indeed it was precisely where we first witnessed the inauspicious ceremony of the green branch burnt and waved at us in defiance that we first found natives who retained both front teeth.  A considerable portion of the river, quite uninhabited, lay between these fire-throwers and the less offensive natives, and there was a difference in the pronunciation, at least, if not in the words, of the tribes.

The old men on the Darling are by far the most expert at stealing; and notwithstanding my marks of respect to them in particular, they were not the less the instigators and abettors of everything wrong.  A mischievous old man is usually accompanied by a stout middle-aged man and a boy; thus the cunning of the old one, the strength of him of middle age, and the agility of the youth are combined with advantage; both in their intercourse with their neighbours and in seeking the means of existence.  The old man leads, as fitted by his experience to do so; and he has also at his command, by this combination, the strength and agility of the other two.