ination no
other conclusion is possible, than that whoever continued acts of
ferocity and cruelty, the impulse and the example were European.

Dr. Ross, arriving in 1822, passed into the interior, and settled on a
farm. He was soon visited by the natives, whom he entertained with the
consideration due to their ignorance and their rights. They had kindled
their fires in perilous contiguity, and the flames threatened to destroy
his crops. He pointed out his danger, and they instantly combined to
extinguish the flame, and transferred their temporary resting place to a
spot, from which no harm could be communicated. Dr. Ross stood by, and
watched their cookery, and they offered him a part of their food: he
suffered himself to be amused with their loud merriment, and their
evolutions in the water. They often renewed their visits, and rather
contributed to his safety, by assisting in the pursuit of white robbers:
and even when they inflicted dreadful outrages on many others, provoked
by extraordinary mal-treatment, they still preserved their kindness for
this amiable man, until they were finally removed to Flinders' Island.

These incidents were not uncommon:--the cross lights, which seem to
exhibit variously the character of a race, but in reality identify the
family of man. To judge of a people, during a season of extraordinary
excitement, must tend to erroneous conclusions: thus, when we turn to
contemporary writings, we are amazed at the ferocity of expression--the
sweeping and sanguinary appeals, by which they are disfigured; but this
astonishment is corrected, when we examine the incidents they record,
and recollect how little qualified men are to reason, when they are
doomed to suffer. So with the native: the delirium of rage, and the
taste for blood, had been produced by causes of long operation; and he
appeared to be a fiend full of mischief and spite, marked out by his
crimes for utter extinction.[12]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: The ruffians who maltreated them were, indeed, punished
with 25 lashes!]

[Footnote 8: Whether from policy or humanity, Michael Howe formed an
exception. He did not allow them to be molested, except "in battle;" and
he flogged with the _cat_ one of his comrades, who had broken "the
articles," by wantonly wounding a native.--Stated by a companion.]

[Footnote 9: In sentencing Rodger, at Port Phillip, 1842, Judge Willis
told him that he had been tried by an intelligent jury; that he could