S--AGGRESSIONS AND INJURIES ON THE PART OF
THE LATTER IN GREAT DEGREE EXTENUATE HIS CRIMES.

Upon bringing to a close the narrative of an Expedition of Discovery in
Australia, during the progress of which an extensive portion of the
previously unknown parts of that continent were explored, I have thought
it might not be uninteresting to introduce a few pages on the subject of
the Aborigines of the country.

It would afford me much gratification to see an interest excited on their
behalf proportioned to the claims of a people who have hitherto been
misjudged or misrepresented.

For the last twelve years I have been personally resident in one or other
of the Australian Colonies, and have always been in frequent intercourse
with the aboriginal tribes that were near, rarely being without some of
them constantly with me as domestics.

To the advantages of private opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of
their character were added, latterly, the facilities afforded by my
holding a public appointment in South Australia, in the midst of a
district more densely populated by natives than any in that Colony, where
no settler had ventured to locate, and where, prior to my arrival in
October 1841, frightful scenes of bloodshed, rapine, and hostility
between the natives and parties coming overland with stock, had been of
frequent and very recent occurrence.

As Resident Magistrate of the Murray District, I may almost say, that for
the last three years I have lived with the natives. My duties have
frequently taken me to very great distances up the Murray or the Darling
rivers, when I was generally accompanied only by a single European, or at
most two, and where, if attacked, there was no possibility of my
receiving any human aid. I have gone almost alone among hordes of those
fierce and blood-thirsty savages, as they were then considered, and have
stood singly amongst them in the remote and trackless wilds, when
hundreds were congregated around, without ever receiving the least injury
or insult.

In my first visits to the more distant tribes I found them shy, alarmed,
and suspicious, but soon learning that I had no wish to injure them, they
met me with readiness and confidence. My wishes became their law; they
conceded points to me that they would not have done to their own people,
and on many occasions cheerfully underwent hunger, thirst, and fatigue to
serve me.

Former habits and prejudices in some respects gave way to t