the settlers aided the progress of their decay, but only in a minor way; for, beyond all doubt, they were no match for the blacks in bush-fighting, either in defensive or offensive operations.

The settler and his homestead were generally, but not always, successfully surprised by his subtle enemy; and in pursuit (if the savage were beaten off), the less active European stood about the same chance of coming up with him, as the slow hound would have in a deer chase; and as far as I can learn from attentive perusal of the massive correspondence on the subject of the long quarrel between the two races, that is deposited in the office of the Colonial Secretary, filling seventeen large volumes of manuscript papers, aggressiveness was almost always on the side of the blacks; and in this unequal contest the musket of the Englishman was far less deadly than the spear of the savage, at least five of the former dying for one of the latter. Thus, in the first and largest volume of the series above spoken of, which treats solely of these encounters, we learn that in the five years preceding the close of 1831, ninety-nine inquests were held on such of the white people, whose bodies could be found after death, against nineteen blacks, killed in these farm fights; and it is further recorded, that in the same period sixty-nine Europeans were wounded against one, or at most two, of the other race; some of the latter were also taken. Of the natives who fell, only one was murdered. That many others on both sides, whose deaths are unreported, were killed in the same period, is very certain; and it is equally certain, or at least highly probable, that in these unrecorded encounters, our countrymen got the worst of it, as they generally did. The number of inquests actually held, must have been much greater than stated, as the coroners of three principal districts were unable to furnish the returns required by the Government, doubtless from the defective state of their office records, to say nothing of the operations of certain bands of whites, called "roving parties," one of which, at least, did kill several of them.

If it had been possible to bring the savage into fair and open fight, with something like equal numbers, all this would have been reversed, of course, But the black assailant was far too acute and crafty an enemy to be betrayed into this style of contest, and never fought till he knew he had his opponents at a disadvantage to themselves. He waited and watched for his opportunity for hours, and often for days, for he knew nothing of the value of time, and when the proper moment arrived, he attacked the solitary hut of the stock-keeper, or the hapless traveller whom he met in the bush, with irresistible numbers,

taking life generally singly, but often; the largest number that I read of his destroying on any one occasion being four persons.

In these assaults on the dwellings of his enemy he contrived his attacks so cleverly as to insure success at least five times in six, and if forced to abandon his enterprise, his retreat, with few exceptions, was a bloodless one.

The natives so managed their advance on the point of attack as not to be seen until they were almost close to the dwelling of their victim. They distinguished between a house and a hut, and seldom approached the former, for they quite understood that there was some difference between the most imprudent stock-keeper, and his more thoughtful employer. They had several instances of this, and profited by their experience. There was no want of pluck in the former, but a great absence of vigilance; and until these barbarians were reduced to a mere remnant by disease and strife, they never attacked except in parties of twenty, fifty, a hundred, or even greater numbers.

Their mode of assaulting a dwelling when there were several inmates at home, which they knew by previous watching, was to divide into small gangs of five, ten, or more, each concealing itself as effectually as the clansmen of Roderick Dhu, their approach being so quiet as to create no suspicion of their presence, to which the woody and uneven nature of the country is eminently favourable. Then one of these parties, which was prepared for instant retreat, made its presence known, either by setting fire to some shed or brush fence, or by sending a flight of spears in at the window, shouting their well-known warwhoop at the same time. This never failed of bringing out the occupants, who, seeing the authors of the outrage, now at a safe distance, but in an attitude of defiance, incautiously pursued them; and no experience of the artifices of the savage ever taught the assailed a lesson not to continue this insane practice. The blacks then retreated just as quickly as the others advanced, keeping out of gunshot, and defying them, generally in good English, to come on; for it was always found that some of nearly every tribe spoke our language well, as will be presently explained. Having decoyed their pursuers to a safe distance into the woods, and generally with rising ground between them and the hut, the others sprang from their cover, and rushing into the place, plundered it of its contents, often finishing their work by burning it to its foundations; first, however, killing, or leaving for dead, any unfortunate persons-mostly a mother and her children who chanced to be left behind. They then fled with their booty, reuniting with the decoy party at some distant point.

In their first systematised assaults, which seem to have commenced about 1824, or a little earlier, their principal object was murder; but in later times, plunder was the chief motive of the savage in attacking the white; and murder, which was often superadded, was only a secondary idea. They took everything that was useful, and often what was of no use at all to them; and more than once afterwards when their encampments were surprised, perhaps fifty miles from any settlement, when instant flight was necessary, they left articles behind that they could not even have known the nature of, such, for example, as clocks, work-boxes, etc., of which there are still extant some curious inventories.

But provisions of all sorts, and, above all, blankets, firearms and ammunition, were the articles they prized most; of which latter they eventually surrendered many stand to the Government-pistols, muskets, fowling-pieces, powder and ball, all perfectly clean and dry, and in excellent order. Of these latter it was found that they knew not only the use, but were also practised in using them; but there is no instance of their bringing them into the field, though they afterwards assured their principal captor and future "protector," Mr. George Augustus Robinson, that they meant to have done so, but to the last they seem to have preferred their own arms in both fight and chase -namely, the spear and waddy.

Of firearms they had learned the use from both men and women of their own race, who, having been taken in early infancy by the settlers, were brought up in their own families, mostly as their own children; but they invariably left them when they grew up, and rejoined their own people just like wood-pigeons, whose natural instincts can never be repressed. To these flights the youths were generally induced by the girls of their own race, with whom alone they could intermarry, and who had, therefore, no difficulty in enticing them into the woods. The natural propensity of the domesticated black females to be with their own people, operated similarly on them, and they became the instructors, in mischief at least, of the wild natives, and strangely enough, were foremost in every aggression on the whites, by whom, with hardly an exception, they had been treated with unvarying kindness; but they were probably thrust to the front by the others; and, possessed, as the whole race was, of most excellent memories, they never lost the language of our country.

Women, too, who had been either forcibly removed from their tribes, or purchased of their husbands or fathers, by a lawless handful of ruffians called sealers, sometimes escaped from their merciless masters, and after years of separation, rejoined their

tribes, and became the most hostile of the enemies of all who belonged to the race of their persecutors; and notwithstanding the ancient custom of the blacks, not to permit the women to take any part in active war, these individuals could not be restrained from joining in, and sometimes leading the attack. One of these persons, called the amazon by her captor Robinson, a woman of one of the East Coast tribes whose real name was Walyer or Taierenore, planned and executed nearly every outrage that was committed in the districts bordering on the north and north-western coast. In the days of their decay, she collected the poor remnants of several tribes into one hostile band, of whom she was the leader and chieftainess; and true to the natural instincts of the savage, avenged the many indignities she had suffered at the hands of a sealer, on every one she fell in with who bore his complexion, telling Robinson she would kill the whole race as soon as she would crush a black snake."

The craft of the savage, and his uniform disposition to treachery in his early intercourse with the settlers, are very faithfully described in the report of the Aboriginal Committee, 19th March, 1830. This committee consisted of some of the best informed and most intelligent men of the colonies of New South Wales and Tasmania, of whom Archdeacon Broughton, the immediate superior of the church of both colonies, was chairman. From this report I will here make an extract :

"It is manifestly shown that an intercourse with them on the part of insulated and unprotected individuals or families has never been perfectly secure. Although they might receive with apparent favour and confidence such persons as landed from time to time on various parts of the coast, or fell in with them in remote situations, yet no sooner was the store of presents exhausted, or the interview from other causes concluded, than there was a risk of the natives making an attack upon the very persons from whom they had the instant before been receiving kindness, and against whom they had, up to that moment, suffered no indication of hostility to betray itself. . . . . . It is within the knowledge of many members of the committee, and has been confirmed by other statements, that even at this period (they are speaking of the early times of the colony) there was, beyond all doubt, in the disposition of the aborigines a lurking spirit of cruelty and mischievous craft, as upon very many occasions, and even on their retirement from houses, where they had been kindly received and entertained, they have been known. to put to death with the utmost wantonness and inhumanity stock and hut keepers whom they fell in with in retired stations, at a distance from population, and who there is every reason to believe had never given them the slightest provocation."

To put down such an enemy as the aboriginal of Tasmania, who, I have shown, was neither to be easily met with in fight, nor overtaken in pursuit, in both of which he so often proved himself the superior man, was obviously a most difficult task; and either his never-ceasing surprises of the settlers must be quietly borne with, or his race must be removed. For a long time the Government retaliated with idle proclamations only, published in the official Gazette with as much seriousness as if it really believed this captivating journal reached the hands of these barbarians, which were of course only so many contributions to the waste-paper basket of the colony. One of these silly advertisements defined the limits of the districts they were to live in, and directed them in mandatory terms never more to pass the lines described in this terrible order, which could not be conveyed to them, nor understood if it were. Abandoning at last this absurd mode of procedure, which lasted much too long, while the blacks were devastating the homes of the colonists, almost with impunity, Colonel Arthur took more active measures for the protection of the people, and equipped several "roving parties", as they were called, to beat up the natives' encampments, and if possible to convey to the enemy a message of peace and as these parties were mostly accompanied by captive blacks, half tamed into subordination, partial intercourse with some of the tribes took place, and beyond doubt, it somehow became known to them that the wish of the Governor was to protect equally both races, for when Robinson afterwards got a footing amongst them, he not only found that they were well aware that the desire of the whites was for peace, but that the expiring tribes, who were then dying off almost as fast as they could lie down, were not unwilling to "come in," as he calls it, i.e., to surrender. The dissemination of this desire, in whatever way it reached them, was the principal good done by the roving parties that is, if it were effected by them, as it is said to have been; though considering what was the practical action of some of them, I should think they did more to increase than allay enmity, and it is more likely they heard it from the civilised youth of their own race, who so often eloped from the guardianship of the settler. But the tribes still remained as intractable as ever, until a man who spoke their own language, and was master of their various dialects (of which Robinson says there were six), went boldly amongst them, accompanied by ten or a dozen of their own countrymen, whom he had perfectly subdued to his will, and conciliated into affection for his person, and in about five years of most unremitting exertion and toil, brought in the whole of them (except about four) who, to the great astonishment of everyone but himself, were found not to number