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Updated: July 29, 2025
We now turned our attention to getting sufficient provisions cooked to last the exploring party for three days, as we were determined to employ the utmost vigilance, and show as little smoke as possible, for nothing creates such suspicion amongst the aboriginals as seeing fresh fires constantly lighted, unless accompanied by the smoke signals, which I have described in a former chapter.
I argue, therefore, that if Leichhardt's animals and equipment had not been buried by a flood, some remains must have been since found, for it is impossible, if such things were above ground that they could escape the lynx-like glances of Australian aboriginals, whose wonderful visual powers are unsurpassed among mankind.
The native had never seen anything as fine as that before. For example, there is the case of the country now called Victoria a country eighty times as large as Rhode Island, as I have already said. By the best official guess there were 4,500 aboriginals in it when the whites came along in the middle of the 'Thirties.
It was a forlorn hope so forlorn that four or five of the aboriginals declined to take part in it, deeming it safer to trust to the sandbank, which they imagined could never be entirely swept by the besoms of the sea. The cutter fled before the storm, only to capsize in the breakers off the mouth of the Johnstone River.
Tommy Pierre, one of the aboriginals attached to the expedition, then stepped forward, and, addressing the assembly, said: I only black fellow, you know; nothing at all but just a few words. I ought to give you good lecture. I am always thankful to any person that brought me into city of Perth.
Everything possible had been done to convert that tongue of land, that refractory stretch of trachyte, into a garden. Paths were blasted through the rock; those few scarred olives, the aboriginals, had been supplanted by whatever flowers and shade-giving trees could be induced, with assiduous waterings, to strike roots into the arid soil. It was still rather a transparent place.
Hill speaks of an aboriginal man in Queensland who was entirely devoid of hair on the head, face, and every part of the body. He had a sister, since dead, who was similarly hairless. Hill mentions the accounts given of another black tribe, about 500 miles west of Brisbane, that contained hairless members. This is very strange, as the Australian aboriginals are a very hairy race of people.
He could assure them they all thanked them very sincerely for their kindness, and deeply appreciated the honour which had been done them. Tommy Pierre, one of the aboriginals attached to the expedition, being called upon to respond, after some hesitation, said, "Well, gentlemen, I am not in good humour to-night.
The process by which an anthropomorphic god or hero succeeds to the exploits of animals, of theriomorphic gods and heroes, is the most common in mythology, and is illustrated by actual practice in modern India. When the Brahmins convert a pig-worshipping tribe of aboriginals, they tell their proselytes that the pig was an avatar of Vishnu.
Those who have had experience of aboriginals as labourers, understand their erratic disposition; yet with considerate treatment, the exact and prompt fulfilment of obligations and promises, the display of some little sympathy with their foibles, interest in their doings, and ready response to any desire expressed to "walk about," they are not wholly to be set at naught as labourers.
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