Discoveries in Australia (Vol. 1&2). John Lort Stokes

to my view. They are in every respect a weak, degraded, miserable race, and are anything but a favourable specimen of the benefits produced by intercourse with polished nations on an uncivilised people. However, the natives of Australia vary as strangely as its soil; the members of the tribes that dwell about Shoalhaven and the small southern ports, and come up in coasting vessels, are good-looking, useful fellows, and may hereafter be made much of. I noticed also, in my circumnavigation of the continent, a remarkable diversity in the character of the natives, some being most kindly disposed, while others manifested the greatest hostility and aversion. My whole experience teaches me that these were not accidental differences, but that there is a marked contrast in the dispositions of the various tribes, for which I will not attempt to account. I leave in the hands of ethnologists to determine whether we are to seek the cause in minute variations of climate or in other circumstances, physical or historical. This I can say, that great pains were formerly taken to civilize the natives of Sydney, gardens were given them, and numerous attempts made to inculcate habits of order, and communicate a knowledge of European arts; but no advantageous results ensued, and it was at length deemed impossible not only to improve them, but even to prevent their deterioration. I cannot determine whether this evinces a natural inaptitude in the savage to learn, or too great impatience in the teachers to witness the fruits of their labours, and a proneness to be discouraged by difficulties.

      "IS THIS GRASS?"

      In the journal of my residence at Sydney I find as the result of one day's experience, the following laconic and somewhat enigmatical memorandum: "Is this grass?" The question implies a doubt, which it would not be easy for any person unacquainted with the circumstances of time and place, to solve: but the reader, when he has seen the explanation, will understand why very pleasing associations are connected with this brief note. I was going down to the jetty late one evening, when I met a party just landed, evidently complete strangers in this quarter of the world. Their wandering and unsteady glances would have convinced me of this fact, had their whole appearance left any doubt about the matter: among them were some ladies, one of whom suddenly detached herself from her companions, and directed as it were by instinct through the gloom, hastened towards a few sods of turf, pressed them exaltingly with her foot, and exclaimed in a light, joyous, happy voice--through which other emotions than that of mere gladness struggled--"Is this grass?" The words were nothing. They might have been uttered in a thousand different tones and have not fixed themselves on my memory; but as they fell in accents of delight and gratitude from the lips of the speaker, they told a whole story, and revealed an entire world of feeling. Never shall I forget the simple expression of this newcomer, whose emotions on first feeling the solid earth beneath her tread, and touching a remembrance of the land she had left in quest of another home, will be incomprehensible to no one who has crossed the ocean.

      CAPTAIN KING.

      We met several persons at Sydney from whom we received valuable information, and particularly Captain King, who, as the reader may recollect, commanded the first expedition on which the Beagle was employed. His great scientific attainments must ever attach respect to his name, and his explorations on the Australian coast, previous to the survey in which we were engaged, together with his father's services as Governor of New South Wales, give him and his children a lasting claim upon the country. The information he furnished on this and subsequent occasions was extremely valuable.

      RISING OF THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT.

      An observation of his gave rise in my mind to very curious conjectures; he told me that where he used formerly to anchor the vessel he commanded in the head of Sydney cove, there was now scarcely sufficient water to float even a boat. As the deposits of the small stream that flows into it could not have produced this change, I was led to examine the shore of the harbour, when I found what seemed to me to be the marks of the sea higher than its present level; this, coupled with the decrease in the soundings we found in Darling Harbour, leads to the legitimate inference that this part of the continent is rising; and my reader will recollect that it is a prevalent theory that the whole of the vast plains of Australasia have but recently emerged from the sea.