and to eat, to sleep a night in the bush, to have recourse to a
Byly-a-duck man for ease in sickness; these to them seem reliefs and
enjoyments from these restraints which civilized life entails upon them."

"With regard to the mental improvement of the native children, we cannot
say much."

"As to the religious state of the pupils in the institution we have
signs, improvements, and encouragements, which say to us, 'Go on.'"

The following quotation from Count Strzelecki's work only just published
(1845), shews the opinion of that talented and intelligent traveller,
after visiting various districts of New South Wales, Port Phillip, Van
Diemen's Land, and Flinders' Island, and after a personal acquaintance
with, and experience among the Aborigines:--

"Thus, in New South Wales, since the time that the fate of the
Australasian awoke the sympathies of the public, neither the efforts of
the missionary, nor the enactments of the Government, and still less the
Protectorate of the "Protectors," have effected any good. The attempts to
civilize and christianize the Aborigines, from which the preservation and
elevation of their race was expected to result, HAVE UTTERLY FAILED,
though it is consolatory, even while painful, to confess, that NEITHER
THE ONE NOR THE OTHER ATTEMPT HAS BEEN CARRIED INTO EXECUTION, WITH THE
SPIRIT WHICH ACCORDS WITH ITS PRINCIPLES."

With such slight encouragement in colonies where the best results are
supposed to have been obtained, and with instances of complete failure in
others, it is surely worth while to inquire, why there has been such a
signal want of success?--and whether or not any means can be devised that
may hold out better hopes for the future? I cannot and I would not
willingly believe, that the question is a hopeless one. The failure of
past measures is no reason that future ones should not be more
successful, especially when we consider, that all past efforts on behalf
of the Aborigines have entirely overlooked the wrongs and injuries they
are suffering under from our mere presence in their country, whilst none
have been adapted to meet the exigencies of the peculiar relations they
are placed in with regard to the colonists. The grand error of all our
past or present systems--the very fons et origo mali appears to me to
consist in the fact, that we have not endeavoured to blend the interests
of the settlers and Aborigines together; and by making it the interest of
both to live