River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1875-07-02
MISCELLANY.
LETTER FROM ABROAD.
Australia.


In my last letter on Australia | said |
would reserve some of my talk for an
other time, but the more | write Of this
interesting country, after having visited
it and Travelled it over and over again, /
find one, or even two letters, too circum-
scribed to give even a synoptical descrip-
ticn Of it. fit will not weary your pa
thence, will reserve something even yet
for another chapter.
The aboriginal inhabitants of this vast
island present such pereeptibie peculiari-
ties and such striking differences of or
ganization as to make it extremely diff
cult correctly to define their origin, or to
assign to them any satisfactory place in
any one of the divisions into which phys
iologists have partitioned the human
race.
If we regard the word Aborigine in its
more correct sense, as expressing obscur-
ity of origin, rather than denoting, as in
its more popular belief, that they are tie
primitive inhabitants of the land, then
may the nations Of Australia be truly
styled aborigines.
The common supposition is, that these
people are of Malay origin and they are
generally assigned place in the Malay
division, and this division includes very
many varieties, with almost every i'm
aginable grade of difference from light
brown to black, from handsome to hide
Gus, f,om fierce to docile, and even from
conspicuous intelligence to almost brute
like idiocy.
The generality of the Australian
Aboriginees inhabiting the best known
districts of the country are of deep
olive black complexion, with abundant
and slightly curling hair, narrow and re-
ceding foreheads, large and prominent
bones, full fat noses, and with the large
mouths, thick Fps, and heavy jaws, char
aeteristic of the negro.
To suppose these eople to be of en-
tirely Malay origin, must be founded on
the supposition that Australia has no in
dgenous inhabitants of its own, which
Lindhardt, and other zealocs searchers
after the truth, are very 10th
to grant, because of the wide distinction
between the present natives and that Of
any other race hitherto seen--a distinc-
ton which the peculiarities Of climate
and LEGAL circumstances are altogether
insufficient to account for. His theory
land it seems very probable one) is,
that the original Malay tribes, when
driven from their land in the twelfth
century by the usurping Sumatrans,
sought shelter and refuge on these shores,
and in process Of time they mixed and
ultimately became blended with the
aborigines they here discovered.
The present Malays in the peninsula Of
Malacca are very much superior race to
any in Australia; but, it is we'll known
fact that the aboriginal inhabitants of
that island, prior to its population from
Sumatra, were a race Of men very similar
in their qualities and characteristics to
the negroes of Africa.
One important cause of the extreme
difficulty which attends all attempts to
dccipher any Of the stages Of their Singh.
lar history is, that no actual sign
Of their former condition, no records of
the past exists among these scattered
wanderers of the wilderness. They seem
complicated enigma, to which as yet
there is no given clue, were found in
state Of barbarism which seems incapable
Of improvement below which it appears
impossible to descend, and above which
there is no trace or visible sigr Of their
ever having existed They seem to stand
as il were, stationary in their primitive.
barbarism; to have experienced neither
improvement nor degeneration. and it will
require long acquaintance with, and
careful consideration Of, their various Gus.
toms, habits and pursuits, before any
clear insight into the history Of their past
can be obtained.
There are here none Of those indica.
tions which mark the growth Of almost
every community. The Australia Abo.
ringes are, and appear to have ever been,
utterly destitute Of even the r1dest az.