It is, nevertheless, tolerably certain that all the natives of Australia belong to one stock. There appears reason to believe that their progenitors originally landed on the north-west coast, that of Cambridge Gulf or Arnhem Land, in canoes drifting from the island of Timor. They seem then to have advanced over the continent in three separate directions. By one route they moved, in the course of ages, directly across to the south coast, near the head of the Great Bight, Spencer Gulf, and the Gulf of St Vincent. Another division followed the west coast to Swan River, and round by King George's Sound. The third and most important body, turning eastward, crossed the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria, then split and subdivided itself amidst the rivers and highland ranges of Queensland, while some of its tribes crossing the Upper Darling occupied New South Wales, overspread the Riverina, and peopled the south-eastern quarter of Australia. The proofs and arguments upon which this hypothetical distribution is based are set forth by Mr Eyre in his interesting essay on the Australian aborigines (Discoveries in Central Australia, &c., by E. J. Eyre, resident magistrate, Murray River, vol. ii.) It is chiefly the prevalence of some peculiar customs, such as circumcision, or the removal of two upper-jaw teeth at a stated age of adolescence, that seems to mark the common descent of tribes, now widely distant in location, which appear to have belonged to one of the supposed main streams of population. The discontinuance of such customs among the tribes of the other main divisions is plausibly ascribed to local influences. From a comparison of their languages, the diversities of which have been already referred to, it appears that little aid is to be expected from them in ethnological grouping.

The natives of the north-eastern quarter-a tropical region of diversified surface, with many rivers and thick forests, as well as open highlands-are far superior in body, mind, and social habits to those of the rest of Australia. They bear, in fact, most resemblance to their neighbours and kindred in the island of New Guinea, but are still below these in many important respects.

If a general view be taken of the tribes of Australia, and the state in which they existed independently of recent European intercourse, two or three extraordinary defects exhibit themselves. They never, in any situation, cultivated the soil for any kind of food-crop. They never reared any kind of cattle, or kept any domesticated animal except the dog, which probably came over with them in their canoes. They have nowhere built permanent dwellings, but contented themselves with mere hovels for temporary shelter. They have neither manufactured nor possessed any chattels beyond such articles of clothing, weapons, ornaments, and utensils as they might carry on their persons, or in the family store-bag for daily use. Their want of ingenuity and contrivance has, however, undoubtedly been promoted by the natural poverty of the land in which the race settled. The sole dress of both sexes in their aboriginal state is a cloak of skin or matting, fastened with a skewer, but open on the right-hand side. No headgear is worn, except sometimes a net to confine the hair, a bunch of feathers, or the tails of small animals. The bosom or back is usually tattoed, or rather scored with rows of hideous raised scars, produced by deep gashes at the age when youth comes to manhood or womanhood. Their dwellings, for the most

or hovels of piled logs, loosely covered with grass or bark, which they can erect in an hour, wherever they encamp. But some huts of a more commodious and substantial form were seen by Flinders on the south-east coast in 1799, and by Captain King and Sir J. Mitchell on the north-east, where they no longer appear. The ingenuity of the race is mostly to be recognised in the manufacture of their weapons of warfare and the chase. While the use of the bow and arrow does not seem to have occurred to them, the spear and axe are in general use, commonly made of hard-wood; the hatchets of stone, and the javelins pointed with stone or bone. The peculiar weapon of the Australian is the boomerang, a curved blade of wood, of such remarkable construction, that it swerves from its direct course, sometimes returning so as to hit an object behind the thrower. Their nets, made by women, either of the tendons of animals or the fibres of plants, will catch and hold the strong kangaroo or the emu, or the very large fish of Australian rivers. Canoes of bent bark, for the inland waters, are hastily prepared at need; but the inlets and straits of the north-eastern sea-coast are navigated by larger canoes and rafts of a better construction.

This

The

Without claiming permanent ownership of the land, each native tribe was accustomed, till the English squatter came, to enjoy the recognised manorial dominion of its own hunting-ground, perhaps ten or twelve miles square. was subdivided between the chief heads of families. affairs of a tribe are ruled by a council of the men past middle age who are still in full vigour of mind and body. One may be their president, but they have no hereditary prince. Their most solemn assemblies take place when the youth undergo one or other of the painful ceremonies of initiation into manhood. In every case of death from disease or unknown causes the sorcerers hold a public inquest, and pretend to ask the corpse how it was killed. Such deaths are invariably inscribed to witchcraft practised by a hostile or envious neighbouring tribe. The bodies of the slain in battle are sometimes eaten, or the fat of the kidneys, at least, is extracted for a feast of victory. But cannibalism in Australia is not confined to the flesh of enemies, nor is it generally associated with an insulting triumph. It is rather, like that reported of the ancient Scythians, a rite of funeral observance, in honour of deceased kindred and friends. The reality of this custom is proved by the testimony of trustworthy English witnesses, who have watched the revolting act. The only idea of a god known to be enter tained by these people, is that of Buddai, a gigantic old man lying asleep for ages, with his head resting upon his arm, which is deep in the sand. He is expected one day to awake and eat up the world. They have no religion beyond those gloomy dreams Their notions of duty relate mostly to neighbourly service and social interest; and they are not all thieves or liars, but are capable of many good deeds. The marriage bond is observed by the wife or wives, the penalty of its violation being death. But chastity upon any other account is a virtue beyond the native conception, though a certain delicacy of feeling in matters of sex is not unknown. The deplorable lack of moral restraint has involved this unhappy race in sufferings which may be easily understood, from their contact with the more reckless and vicious representatives of foreign nations.

The numbers of the native Australians are steadily diminishing. A remnant of the race exists in each of the provinces, while a few tribes still wander over the interior. Altogether it is computed that not more than about 80,000 aborigines remain on the continent.

Perhaps the most complete and trustworthy informa tion on the Australian race is to be found in works pub❘lished some twenty or thirty years ago, before the country 15

III.

Colonial History.-Of the five Australian provinces, that of New South Wales may be reckoned the oldest. It was in 1788, eighteen years after Captain Cook explored the east coast, that Port Jackson was founded as a penal station for criminals from England; and the settlement retained that character, more or less, during the subsequent fifty years, transportation being virtually suspended in 1839. The colony, however, from 1821 had made a fair start in free industrial progress.

By this time, too, several of the other provinces had come into existence. Van Diemen's Land, now called Tasmania, had been occupied as early as 1803. It was an auxiliary penal station under New South Wales, till in 1825 it became a separate province. From this island, ten years later, parties crossed Bass's Straits to Port Phillip, where a new settlement was shortly established, forming till 1851 a part of New South Wales, but now the richer and more populous colony of Victoria. In 1827 and 1829, an English company endeavoured to plant a settlement at the Swan River, and this, added to a small convict station established in 1825 at King George's Sound, constituted Western Australia. On the shores of the Gulf St Vincent, again, from 1835 to 1837, South Australia was created by another joint-stock company, as an experiment in the Wakefield scheme of colonisation.

Such were the political component parts of British Australia up to 1839. The earlier history, therefore, of New South Wales is peculiar to itself. Unlike the other mainland provinces, it was at first held and used chiefly for the reception of British convicts. When that system was abolished, the social conditions of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia became more equal. Previous to the gold discoveries of 1851 they may be included, from 1839, in a general summary view.

The first British governors at Sydney, from 1788, ruled with despotic power. They were naval or military officers in command of the garrison, the convicts, and the few free settlers The duty was performed by such men as Captain Arthur Phillip, Captain Hunter, and others. In the twelve years' rule of General Macquarie, closing with 1821, the colony made a substantial advance. By means of convict labour roads and bridges were constructed, and a route opened inte the interior beyond the Blue Mountains. A population of 30,000, three-fourths of them convicts, formed the infant commonwealth, whose attention was soon directed to the profitable trade of rearing fine wool sheep, first commenced by Mr John M'Arthur in 1803.

During the next ten years, 1821-31, Sir Thomas Brisbane and Sir Ralph Darling, two generals of the army, being successively governors, the colony increased, and eventually succeeded in obtaining the advantages of a representative institution, by means of a legislative council Then came General Sir Richard Bourke, whose wise and liberal administration proved most beneficial. New South Wales became prosperous and attractive to emigrants with capital. Its enterprising ambition was encouraged by taking fresh country north and south. In the latter direction, explored by Mitchell in 1834 and 1836, lay Australia Felix, now Victoria, including the well-watered, thicklywooded country of Gipps' Land.

This district, then called Port Phillip, in the time of Governor Sir George Gipps, 1838 to 1846, was growing fast into a position claiming independence. Melbourne, which began with a few huts on the banks of the Yarra Yarra in 1835, was in 1840 a busy town of 6000 inhabitants, the population of the whole district, with the towns of

trade amounted to £204,000, and its exports to £138,000. Such was the growth of infant Victoria in five years; that of Adelaide or South Australia, in the same period, was nearly equal to it. At Melbourne there was a deputy governor, Mr Latrobe, under Sir George Gipps at Sydney. Adelaide had its own governors, first Captain Hindmarsh, next Colonel Gawler, and then Captain George Grey. Western Australia progressed but slowly, with less than 4000 inhabitants altogether, under Governors Stirling and Hutt.

The general advancement of Australia, to the era of the gold-mining, had been satisfactory, in spite of a severe commercial crisis, from 1841 to 1843, caused by extravagant land speculations and inflated prices. Victoria produced already more wool than New South Wales, the aggregate produce of Australia in 1852 being 45,000,000 b; and South Australia, between 1842 and this date, had opened most valuable mines of copper. The population of New South Wales in 1851 was 190,000; that of Victoria, 77,000; and that of South Australia about the same.

At Summerhill Creek, 20 miles north of Bathurst, in the Macquarie plains, gold was discovered, in February 1851, by Mr E. Hargraves, a gold-miner from California. The intelligence was made known in April or May; and then began a rush of thousands,-men leaving their former employments in the bush or in the towns to search for the ore so greatly coveted in all ages. In August it was found at Anderson's Creek, near Melbourne; a few weeks later the great Ballarat gold-field, 80 miles west of that city, was opened; and after that, Bendigo, now called Sandhurst, to the north. Not only in these lucky provinces, New South Wales and Victoria, where the auriferous deposits were revealed, but in every British colony of Australasia, all ordinary industry was left for the one exciting pursuit. The copper mines of South Australia were for the time deserted, while Tasmania and New Zealand lost many inhabitants, who emigrated to the more promising country. The disturbance of social, industrial, and commercial affairs, during the first two or three years of the gold era, was very great. Immigrants from Europe, and to some extent from North America and China, poured into Melbourne, where the arrivals in 1852 averaged 2000 persons in a week. The population of Victoria was doubled in the first twelvemonth of the gold fever, and the value of imports and exports was multiplied tenfold between 1851 and 1853.

The colony of Victoria was constituted a separate province in July 1851, Mr Latrobe being appointed governor, followed by Sir Charles Hotham and Sir Henry Barkly in succession. The more rapid increase of Victoria since that time, in wealth and number of inhabitants, has gained it a pre-eminence in the esteem of emigrants; but the varied resources of New South Wales, and its greater extent of territory, may in some degree tend to redress the balance, if not to restore the character of superior importance to the older colony.

The separation of the northern part of eastern Australia, under the name of Queensland, from the original province of New South Wales, took place in 1859. At that time the district contained about 25,000 inhabitants; and in the first six years (as Sir George Bowen, the first governor, observed in 1865) its population was quadrupled and its trade trebled.

It appears, from a general view of Australian progress in the last twenty years, that the provinces less rich in gold than Victoria have been enabled to advance in prosperity by other means. Wool continues the great staple of Aus tralia. But New South Wales, possessing both coal and iron, is becoming a seat of manufactures; while Queens