e extension of boundaries of
location to the aborigines themselves. The more ground our flocks and
herds occupy, the more circumscribed become the haunts of the savage. Not
only is this the inevitable consequence, but he sees the intruder running
down his game with dogs of unequalled strength and swiftness, and
deplores the destruction of his means of subsistence. The cattle tread
down the herbs which at one season of the year constituted his food. The
gun, with its sharp report, drives the wild fowl from the creeks, and the
unhappy aborigine is driven to despair. He has no country on which to
fall back. The next tribe will not permit him to occupy their territory.
In such a state what is he to do? Is it a matter of surprise that in the
confidence of numbers he should seek to drive those who have intruded on
him back again, and endeavour to recover possession of his lost domain?
It might be that the parties concerned were not conscious of the injury
they were inflicting, but even that fact would not lessen the fancied
right of the native to repossess himself of his lost territory. Yet on
the other hand we cannot condemn resistance on the part of the white man;
for it would be unjust to overlook the fearful position in which they are
placed, and the terrible appearance of a party of savages working
themselves up to the perpetration of indiscriminate slaughter. No doubt
many parties have gone to take up stations in the interior, with the
honest intention of keeping on good terms with the natives, and who in
accordance with such resolution have treated them with hospitality and
consideration; but, it unfortunately happens that a prolonged intercourse
with the Europeans weakens and at length destroys those feelings of awe
and uncertainty with which they were at first regarded. The natives find
that they are men like themselves, and that their intrusion is an injury,
and they perhaps become the aggressors in provoking hostilities. In such
a case resistance becomes a matter of personal defence, and however much
such collisions may be regretted, the parties concerned can hardly be
brought to account; but, it more frequently happens, that the men who are
sent to form out-stations beyond the boundaries of location, are men of
bold and unscrupulous dispositions, used to crime, accustomed to danger,
and reckless as to whether they quarrel, or keep on terms with the
natives who visit them. Thrown to such a distance in the wild, in som