h which it
takes its course, and which its deposit ought only to have fertilized,
[Note 102 at end of para.] so the native, who ought to be improved by a
contact with Europeans, is overwhelmed and swept away by their approach.
In Van Diemen's Land the same result has been produced as at Sydney, but
in a more extended and exterminating manner.[Note 103 at end of para.]
There, instead of a few districts, the whole island is depopulated
of its original inhabitants, and only thirty or forty individuals,
the banished remnant of a once numerous people, are now existing as
exiles at Flinders Island, to tell the tale of their expatriation. [Note
104 at end of para.] In Western Australia the same process is gradually
but certainly going on among the tribes most in contact with the
Europeans. In South Australia it is the same; and short as is the time
that this province has been occupied as a British Colony, the results
upon the Aborigines are but too apparent in their diminished numbers, in
the great disproportion that has been produced between the sexes, and in
the large preponderance of deaths over births. A miserably diseased
condition, and the almost total absence of children, are immediate
consequences of this contact with Europeans. The increase or diminution
of the tribes can only be ascertained exactly in the different
districts, by their being regularly mustered, and lists kept of the
numbers and proportion of the sexes, births, deaths, etc.

[Note 102: "Hard indeed is the fate of the children of the soil,
and one of the darkest enigmas of life lies in the degradation and
decay wrought by the very civilization which should succour, teach,
and improve."--ATHENAEUM.]

[Note 103: "That the Aboriginal Tasmanian was naturally mild and
inoffensive in disposition, appears to be beyond doubt. A worm, however,
will turn, and the atrocities which were perpetrated against these
unoffending creatures may well palliate the indiscriminate, though
heart-rending slaughter they entailed. Such was the character of the
Tasmanian native before roused by oppression, and ere a continued
and systematic hostility had arisen between the races--ere 'their
hand was against every man, and every man's hand against them.'"
--MARTYN'S COLONIAL MAGAZINE, May, 1840.]

[Note 104: "At the epoch of their deportation, in 1835, the number of the
natives amounted to 210. Visited by me in 1842, that is, after the
interval of seven years, they mustered only