very thing concurs to facilitate this
expedient; every thing in this is accordant with the mode of life of the
inhabitant of these shores, as well as the circumstances in which he is
placed. Fire, that powerful and terrible agent, their recourse on so
many and such valuable occasions, cannot fail of exciting among these
people some of those sentiments of veneration, consecrated with the
majority of ancient nations by such numerous institutions and religious
monuments. Without being deified, perhaps, as formerly it was, fire in
these countries is regarded as something superior to the other works of
nature; and these first ideas will probably have contributed not in a
trivial degree to the determination of burning their dead. The requisite
materials for the purpose were at hand: neither calculation nor labor
were required for putting the plan in execution; no instrument was
necessary; and it prevented taint and the consequent infection. But a
few remains of bones would be here after the operation, to cover which
the ashes of the fire would be sufficient. The whole ceremony required
only a few hours; and prejudices tended to render it reputable and
sacred. Thus then this practice of burning the dead does not appear to
be the effect of mere chance: accordant with physical and local
circumstances, these evidently were the origin of the custom."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 27: Despatch to Lord Goderich, 6th April, 1833.]

[Footnote 28: The following is worth remembering, as a caution to
reviewers, as well as philosophers:--"At Port Dalrymple, in Van Diemen's
Land, there was every reason to believe, the natives were unacquainted
with the use of canoes; a fact, extremely embarrassing to those who
indulge themselves in speculating on the genealogy of natives: because
it reduces them to the necessity of supposing, that this isolated people
swam over from the main land, or that they were _aboriginal_."--_Rev.
Sidney Smith, Edin. Rev._, 1803.]

[Footnote 29: "In many instances (it is remarked by Count Strzelecki, p.
355) the facial angle is more acute in the white man: the superciliary
ridge, the centres of ossification of the frontal bones, and the ridge
of the occipital one, more developed; and the maxilliary more widely
expanded, than in the skulls of aborigines."]

[Footnote 30: Veteran novel readers will be delighted to find, that
these black lovers were united by an event, which constitutes the most
touching artifice of fashi