To appreciate their general powers of mind is difficult.  Ignorance, prejudice, the force of habit, continually interfere to prevent dispassionate judgment.  I have heard men so unreasonable as to exclaim at the stupidity of these people for not comprehending what a small share of reflection would have taught them they ought not to have expected.  And others again I have heard so sanguine in their admiration as to extol for proofs of elevated genius what the commonest abilities were capable of executing.

If they be considered as a nation whose general advancement and acquisitions are to be weighed, they certainly rank very low, even in the scale of savages.  They may perhaps dispute the right of precedence with the Hottentots or the shivering tribes who inhabit the shores of Magellan.  But how inferior do they show when compared with the subtle African; the patient watchful American; or the elegant timid islander of the South Seas.  Though suffering from the vicissitudes of their climate, strangers to clothing, though feeling the sharpness of hunger and knowing the precariousness of supply from that element on whose stores they principally depend, ignorant of cultivating the earth—­a less enlightened state we shall exclaim can hardly exist.

But if from general view we descend to particular inspection, and examine individually the persons who compose this community, they will certainly rise in estimation.  In the narrative part of this work, I have endeavoured rather to detail information than to deduce conclusions, leaving to the reader the exercise of his own judgment.  The behaviour of Arabanoo, of Baneelon, of Colbee and many others is copiously described, and assuredly he who shall make just allowance for uninstructed nature will hardly accuse any of those persons of stupidity or deficiency of apprehension.

To offer my own opinion on the subject, I do not hesitate to declare that the natives of New South Wales possess a considerable portion of that acumen, or sharpness of intellect, which bespeaks genius.  All savages hate toil and place happiness in inaction, and neither the arts of civilized life can be practised or the advantages of it felt without application and labour.  Hence they resist knowledge and the adoption of manners and customs differing from their own.  The progress of reason is not only slow, but mechanical.  “De toutes les Instructions propres a l’homme, celle qu’il acquiert le plus tard, et le plus difficilement, est la raison meme.”  The tranquil indifference and uninquiring eye with which they surveyed our works of art have often, in my hearing, been stigmatized as proofs of stupidity, and want of reflection.  But surely we should discriminate between ignorance and defect of understanding.  The truth was, they often neither comprehended the design nor conceived the utility of such works, but on subjects in any degree familiarised to their ideas, they generally testified not only acuteness of discernment but a large