The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1874-02-05
CENTRAL AUSTRALIA.

hundreds of miles, from one well in
sandh hills to another, from one dried
up water-hole to another, brackish and
salt. Ono small party is enough for
any one camp; and the camps are too
far apart for any gathering or increase
into what can be called tribe. They
ar. here miserable, weak race strug-
Cling hard for existence in dry seasons,
and camping listlessly upon the lakes
and lagoons and muishcs of wet sen
sons. They cat more rats than kanga-
roos in the plains, and more frogs than
fish on the river-banks but upon the
downs, or inland slopes, of the margin
of the great plain, they are better of
and are better men. They have some
constant streams, some game in any
season and, if the seasons limi their
numbers, dearth and famine are rarely
before them. On the coast country
they are most numerous. The greatest
friend to the savage is the sea; all
lands, however rich the interior may be
in game, carry more population on the
seaboard than in any other tract. And
the estimates of travellers, particularly
navigators, as to the population of is
lands, is almost invariably exaggerated,
for the reas IN that they see upon the
shores an extensive proportion, perhaps
nearly all, of the whole people.
The distribution of the indigenous
population is illustrated by the number
of dialects. In the interior, one dialect
is known over an immense area. 1t is
spoken from the Murray, or, Mt least,
the lower Darling, far mp into Queens
land, and westward into south Austria
La ; it is said to be a common language
to many inland tribes, who may have
each separate dialects of their own ; and
it will assist the traveller over thou
sand miles of country. But, upon the
eastern margin, different from all the
other edges of the great plain, where
many rivers drain the rich western slopes
of the Cordillera, most OF the rivers
have a separate tribe and distinct dia-
lect. In the interior the tribes or fam
lilies may meet they will rarely fight ;
their necessity compels them to com
municate with each other. But upon
the better country and the more boun-
teous rivers they may meet, with their
waters, but not to join; they may fight,
but they are not compelled to have a
common language. And upon the coast,
so numerous are the tribes and dialects,
particularly in the tropics, that ship
wrecked seaman, who had lived seven
teen years with the natives upon the
Queensland coast before it was settled,
could not, when he returned to civiliza.
ton, interpret for tribes hundred
miles from his recent home. He said
the tribe he lived with never went be-
yond radius of fifty or sixty miles,
yet every headland and bay and island
shows signs of native life. There are
many people on the coasts, particularly
in the tropical islands, but so very few
in the interior that it might be called
almost uninhabited. And this paucity
of population contrasts strangely with
other lands. No equal tract of country
in almost any climate supports so few
men. The so-called deserts of Africa
are richer in all life, vegetable, animal,
and human, beyond all comparison and
how widely different was America when
first opened up! The first explorers, or,
as they call themselves. the C 'nquerors,
Of Florida, came to a great river in the
interior; and found countless villages
along both banks, at short distances
apart some camps couldmuster thou
sand warriors; and this dense popula-
ton lived by the chase and by the
river, with the little maize their women
grew. Well might the pioneers, baflled
in their search for gold and silver, re-
feet, on their return, that the land and
the climate of this father of rivers was
greater treasure than heplunder they
had hoped for.
But the inferiority of the aboriginal
race is shown more BY its extremely low
standard of intellect than by its numer-
ical weakness. The race is without Wig
or, much less ferocity or warlike energy;
it is listless, by no means aggressive ;
it is held down by the continual strug-
gle with nature, and only survives as o
wretched speci7 en- of humanity. Some
races are conquered or spoiled by the
luxuriant kindness of nature, as in trop
ical gardens; and others are overcome
in the fight against starvation, as in the
polar wastes. But here we have race
first enervated by mild temperate eli
mate, which has no winter nor regu
larity of season, and then subjected tc
uncertain extremes of drouth and fam
| inc. The coldest season in Australia
except upon the highest southern ran
ges, cannot be called a winter; it re
onires no provision to be made against
it, so the people have no thought of to
morrow they are utterly improvident
The dryest and the wettest season can
not be foretold; they occur at ever-va
rying intervals, not of months, but o
wears; they cannot be anticipated, Sc
the people are careless, listless, anC
hopeless in calamity. The struggles re
auired to survive are frequent and Sc
we're, but the mild climate never braces
her children for that struggle. Intel
lectually, as physically, the race is poo
and weak. Ignorant beyond compari
son, they are abiectly subject to terror
yet have not acquired mythology, MOI
any one general superstition. In dark
est forest, beneath the highest noun
tains, by the dreary, silent lakes of the
southern highlands, they have retained
tradition of some animal, probably I
inland seal, which is now extinct. The,
have, in their ignorance, learned tt
dread the temperance of this animal
and have some common feeling approach
ing a superstition regarding it. White
men came, and spoke of devil. Nov
the step is short from their "banyip
T., this "devil :" so they learned su
parstition. But it is not indigenous
Where there is no tradition of an cx
tinct animal, as in the north OF the con
tinent, there is neither banyip nor devil
few aboriginals have any such idea
even from white men. 1t has been sta
ted that they have an idea of the Su
preme Being, and of the transmigratiol