dingly rare. The whole
race is divided into tribes, more or less numerous, according to
circumstances, and designated from the localities they inhabit; for
although universally a wandering race with respect to places of
habitation, their wanderings are circumscribed by certain well-defined
limits, beyond which they seldom pass, except for purposes of war or
festivity. In short, every tribe has its own district, the boundaries of
which are well known to the natives generally; and within that district
all the wild animals are considered as much the property of the tribe
inhabiting, or rather ranging on, its whole extent, as the flocks of
sheep and herds of cattle, that have been introduced into the country by
adventurous Europeans, are held by European law and usage the property of
their respective owners. In fact, as the country is occupied chiefly for
pastoral purposes, the difference between the Aboriginal and the European
ideas of property in the soil is more imaginary than real, the native
grass affording subsistence to the kangaroos of the natives, as well as
to the wild cattle of the Europeans, and the only difference indeed
being, that the former are not branded with a particular mark like the
latter, and are somewhat wilder and more difficult to catch. Nay, as the
European regards the intrusion of any other white man upon the
CATTLE-RUN, of which European law and usage have made him the possessor,
and gets it punished as a trespass, the Aborigines of the particular
tribe inhabiting a particular district, regard the intrusion of any other
tribe of Aborigines upon that district, for the purposes of kangaroo
hunting, etc. as an intrusion, to be resisted and punished by force of
arms. In short, this is the frequent cause of Aboriginal, as it is of
European wars; man, in his natural state, being very much alike in all
conditions--jealous of his rights, and exceedingly pugnacious. It is
true, the European intruders pay no respect to these Aboriginal divisions
of the territory, the black native being often hunted off his own ground,
or destroyed by European violence, dissipation, or disease, just as his
kangaroos are driven off that ground by the European's black cattle; but
this surely does not alter the case as to the right of the Aborigines.

"But particular districts are not merely the property of particular
tribes; particular sections or portions of these districts are
universally recognised by the natives as the pr