as they call it, on their land:  they do not perceive that their own circumstances are thereby sadly altered for the worse in most cases; that their means of subsistence are gradually more and more limited, and their numbers rapidly diminished:  in short, in the simplicity of their hearts, they take the frozen adder in their bosom, and it stings them to death.  They look for a benefit or blessing from European intercourse, and it becomes their ruin.

“If I had a little more leisure I would have written more at length, and in a style more worthy of your perusal; but you may take it as certain, at all events, that the Aborigines of Australia have an idea of property in the soil in their native and original state, and that that idea is, in reality, not very different from that of the European proprietors of sheep and cattle, by whom they have, in so many instances, been dispossessed, without the slightest consideration of their rights or feelings.

“Indeed, the infinity of the native names of places, all of which are descriptive and appropriate, is of itself a prima FACIE evidence of their having strong ideas of property in the soil; for it is only where such ideas are entertained and acted on, that we find, as is certainly the case in Australia, NULLUM sine NOMINE SAXUM.

“I am, my dear Friend,
“Your’s very sincerely,
“John Dunmore Lang.

“To Dr. Hodgkin.”

The dwellings of the Aborigines are simple, of a very temporary character, and requiring but little skill or labour to construct them.  In the summer season, or when the weather is fine, they consist of little more than a few bushes laid one upon the other, in the form of a semicircle, as a protection from the wind, for the head, which is laid usually close up to this slight fence.  In the winter, or in cold or wet weather, the semicircular form is still preserved, but the back and sides are sheltered by branches raised upon one end, meeting at the top in an arch, and supported by props in front, the convex part being always exposed to the wind.  The sizes of these huts depends upon the facilities that may be afforded for making them, the number of natives, and the state of the weather.

[Note 75:  “Travelled northerly for 20 miles; at evening encamped at Tarcone, adjacent to the station (then being formed) of Drs. Bernard and Kilgour.  The greater part of the servants at this establishment had been convicts, they were in a state of great insubordination.  My native attendants pointed out an extensive weir, 200 feet long and five feet high; they said it was the property of a family, and emphatically remarked, “that white men had stolen it and their country;” the Yow-ew-nil-lurns were the original inhabitants.  “Tapoe,” the Mount Napier of Mitchell, is an isolated hill of volcanic formation; the crater is broken down on the west side to its base.  The great swamp is skirted by low hills and well grassed