ings for doing so; and
when so returning, it would be convenient to number your camps, that the
route and the country may be better described by you, and recognised
afterwards by others. These numbers may be cut in common figures on
trees; and if, as I hope, you should reach the Gulph, you can commence
them there: you may prefix C to each number commencing with 1, thus
avoiding any confusion with the numbers of my numbered camps on the
Victoria.

"On returning to the colony, you will report to me, or to the officer in
charge of the Survey Department, the progress and results of your
journey.

"I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient servant,

"T. L. MITCHELL, SURVEYOR-GENERAL.

"E. B. C. Kennedy, Esq. J. P. Assistant Surveyor, Sydney."

OF THE ABORIGINES.

There is no subject connected with New South Wales, or Australia, less
understood in England than the character and condition of the aboriginal
natives. They have been described as the lowest in the scale of humanity,
yet I found those who accompanied me superior in penetration and judgment
to the white men composing my party. Their means of subsistence and their
habits, are both extremely simple; but they are adjusted with admirable
fitness to the few resources afforded by such a country, in its wild
state. What these resources are, and how they are economised by the
natives, can only be learnt by an extensive acquaintance with the
interior; and the knowledge of a few simple facts, bearing on this
subject, may not be wholly devoid of interest. Fire, grass, kangaroos,
and human inhabitants, seem all dependent on each other for existence in
Australia; for any one of these being wanting, the others could no longer
continue. Fire is necessary to burn the grass, and form those open
forests, in which we find the large forest-kangaroo; the native applies
that fire to the grass at certain seasons, in order that a young green
crop may subsequently spring up, and so attract and enable him to kill or
take the kangaroo with nets. In summer, the burning of long grass also
discloses vermin, birds' nests, etc., on which the females and children,
who chiefly burn the grass, feed. But for this simple process, the
Australian woods had probably contained as thick a jungle as those of New
Zealand or America, instead of the open forests in which the white men
now find grass for their cattle, to the exclusion of the kangaroo, which
is well-known to forsake all those parts of th