upport the Australian savage is not a cannibal: while the New
Zealander, who inhabits a much more productive region, notoriously feasts
on human flesh.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

Were it expedient to enter here into further details, or upon a longer
description of the natives of Australia, I might quote largely from
Captain Cook's account of those he saw at Adventure Bay, Van Diemen's
Land, as being more detailed and descriptive, both of the natives in the
interior, and of those also around the whole circumference of Australia,
than any I could give. In the descriptions by Dampier and other
navigators who have touched on any part of these shores we recognise the
same natives with all their characteristics, and are led to conclude that
they are derived from the same stock and, as the judicious compiler of
the first History of New Holland considered it most probable from this
and other circumstances "that the number is small, and that the interior
parts of the country are inhabited,"* I may observe that I have had no
reason to entertain a contrary opinion from what I saw of the interior
country beyond the Darling. The native population is very thinly spread
over the regions I have explored, amounting to nearly a seventh part of
Australia. I cannot estimate the number at more than 6000; but on the
contrary I believe it to be considerably less. They may increase rapidly
if wild cattle become numerous; and as an instance I may refer to the
number and good appearance of the Cudjallagong tribe near Macquarie range
where they occasionally fell in with a herd of wild cattle.

(*Footnote. History of New Holland pages 31 and 232.)

DESTRUCTION OF THE KANGAROO.

The kangaroo disappears from cattle runs, and is also killed by stockmen
merely for the sake of the skin; but no mercy is shown to the natives who
may help themselves to a bullock or a sheep. Such a state of things must
infallibly lead to the extirpation of the aboriginal natives, as in Van
Diemen's Land, unless timely measures are taken for their civilisation
and protection. I have heard some affecting allusions made by natives to
the white men's killing the kangaroo. At present almost every stockman
has several strong kangaroo dogs; now it would be only an act of justice
towards the aborigines to prohibit white men by law from killing these
creatures which are as essential to the natives as cattle are to the
Europeans. The prohibition would be at least a proof of the dis