e
measure out of the pale of the law, without any of the opposite sex to
restrain their passions, the encouragement these men give to their sable
friends, is only for the gratification of their passions. The seizure of
some of their women, and the refusal to give them up, provokes hostility
and rouses resentment, but those who scruple not at the commission of one
act of violence, most assuredly will not hesitate at another. Such cases
are gene rally marked by some circumstances that betray its character,
and naturally rouse the indignation of the Government. If the only
consequence was the punishment of the guilty, we should rejoice in such
retributive justice; but, unfortunately and too frequently, it happens,
that the station belongs to a stockholder, who, both from feelings of
interest and humanity, has treated the natives with every consideration,
and discountenanced any ill-treatment of them on the part of his
servants, but whose property is nevertheless sacrificed by their
misconduct.

I have been unintentionally led into this subject, in the course of my
remarks on the policy of Captain Grey, in establishing the post at
Moorundi. The consequences have been equally beneficial to the settlers
and aborigines. The eastern out-stations of the province have been
unmolested, and parties with stock have passed down the Murray in perfect
safety. If any act of violence or robbery has been committed by the
natives, the perpetrators have been delivered up by the natives
themselves, who have learnt that it is their interest to refrain from
such acts; and instead of the Murray being the scene of conflict and
slaughter, its whole line is now occupied by stock-stations, and
tranquillity everywhere prevails.

About seventy {FIFTEEN in published text} miles below Moorundi is
Wellington, where a ferry has been established across the Murray, that
township being on the direct road from Adelaide to Mount Gambier, and
Rivoli Bay. A little below Wellington, Lake Victoria receives the waters
of the Murray, which eventually mingle with those of the ocean,
through the sea mouth.

The country immediately to the eastward of the Murray affords, in some
places, a scanty supply of grass for sheep, but, generally speaking, it
is similar in its soil and rock formation, and consequently in its
productions to the scrubby country to the westward. The line of granite I
have mentioned, in the former part of my work, as traversing or crossing
the M