a miserable family or two may be met with, then a few detached groups of half-starved wretches, dependant upon what they can procure by begging for their daily sustenance.  Still further, the scattered and diseased remnants [Note 101 at end of para.], of once powerful, but now decayed tribes are seen interspersed throughout the country, until at last upon arriving at the more remote regions, where the blighting and annihilating effects of colonization have not yet overtaken them, tribes are yet found flourishing in their natural state, free from that misery and diminution which its presence always brings upon them.

[Note 100:  “In the first year of the settlement of New South Wales, 1788, Governor Phillip caused the amount of the population of Port Jackson to be ascertained, by every cove in it being visited by different inspectors at the same time.  The number of natives found in this single harbour was 130, and they had 67 boats.  At the same time it was known that many were in the woods making new canoes.  From this and other data, Governor Phillip estimated the population between Botany Bay and Broken Bay inclusive, at 1500.”—­Aboriginal Protection Society’s Report, May 1839, p. 13.

In Report of the same Society for July 1839, page 71, Mr. Threlkeld says—­“Of one large tribe in the interior four years ago there were 164 persons—­there are now only three individuals alive!!”]

[Note 101:  “The whole eastern country, once thickly peopled, may now be said to be entirely abandoned to the whites, with the exception of some scattered families in one part, and of a few straggling individuals in another; and these once so high spirited, so jealous of their independence and liberty, now treated with contempt and ridicule even by the lowest of the Europeans; degraded, subdued, confused, awkward, and distrustful, ill concealing emotions of anger, scorn, and revenge—­emaciated and covered with filthy rags;—­these native lords of the soil, more like spectres of the past than living men, are dragging on a melancholy existence to a yet more melancholy doom.”—­STRZELECHI’S N. S. Wales, p.350.]

It is here that the native should be seen to be appreciated, in his native wilds, where he alone is lord of all around him.  To those who have thus come into communication with the Aborigines, and have witnessed the fearless courage and proud demeanour which a life of independence and freedom always inspires, it cannot but be a matter of deep regret to see them gradually dwindling away and disappearing before the presence of Europeans.  As the ravages of a flood destroy the country through which it takes its course, and which its deposit ought only to have fertilized, [Note 102 at end of para.] so the native, who ought to be improved by a contact with Europeans, is overwhelmed and swept away by their approach.  In Van Diemen’s Land the same result has been produced as at Sydney, but in a more extended and exterminating manner.[Note