hat its banks were located at every available point.
Moorundi, the property of Mr. Eyre, the present Lieutenant-Governor of
New Zealand, is ninety miles from Adelaide, and twenty-six from the N.W.
bend of the Murray. It is part of a special survey of four thousand acres
taken by Mr. Eyre and Mr. Gilles on the banks of the river, and in
consequence of its appropriate position, was selected by Captain Grey,
the then Governor of South Australia, as a station for a Resident
Magistrate and Protector of the Aborigines, to fill both which
appointments he nominated Mr. Eyre. There can be no doubt, either as to
the foresight which dictated the establishment of this post on the banks
of the Murray, or the selection of Mr. Eyre as the Resident. At the time
this measure was decided on, the feelings of the natives on the river
were hostile to the settlers. The repeated collisions between them and
the Overlanders had kindled a deep spirit of revenge in their breasts,
and although they suffered severely in every contest, they would not
allow any party with stock to pass along the line of the river without
attempting to stop their progress; and there can be no doubt but that, in
this frame of mind, they would have attacked the station next the river
if they had been left to themselves, and with their stealthy habits and
daring, would have been no mean enemy on the boundaries of location. The
character and spirit of these people is entirely misunderstood and
undervalued by the learned in England, and the degraded position in the
scale of the human species into which they have been put, has, I feel
assured, been in consequence of the little intercourse that had taken
place between the first navigators and the aborigines of the Australian
Continent. I have seen them under every variety of circumstances--have
come suddenly upon them in a state of uncontrolled freedom--have passed
tribe after tribe under the protection of envoys--have visited them in
their huts--have mixed with them in their camps, and have seen them in
their intercourse with Europeans, and I am, in candour, obliged to
confess that the most unfavourable light in which I have seen them, has
been when mixed up with Europeans.

That the natives of the interior have made frequent attacks on the
stations of the settlers I have no doubt; very likely, in some instances,
they have done so without any direct provocation, but we must not forget
their position or the consequences of th