leaping from rock to rock--assisted the animal
functions, and developed muscular power. To continue them required the
occasion, as well as the permission; but the stimulus was gone.

It is said, by writers not favorable to the establishment at Flinders',
that attempts to force the customs and habits of a civilised people were
unreasonably, and even ridiculously severe. However docile the blacks,
and generous the intention of their teachers, the physical effects of a
total change in the habits of a race are not to be disputed, or that
what may be harmless when the result of choice, and founded on new
mental and physical stimulants, is dangerous when the mind is vacant,
and the objects of civilised exertion unappreciated. Perhaps, no one is
blameable. In their social circumstances, we may indeed trace the
occasion of decay, but they were no longer produced by cruelty.

There were, other causes. The site of the settlement was unhealthy: they
were often destitute of good water; the tanks preserved an insufficient
supply. It is admitted that they frequently suffered this lack; but it
is stated, that they had sufficient allowed them when sick!

It is, however, clear, that many perished by that strange disease, so
often fatal to the soldiers and peasants of Switzerland, who die in
foreign lands from regret of their native country. They were within
sight of Tasmania, and as they beheld its not distant but forbidden
shore, they were often deeply melancholy: to this point the testimony of
Mr. Robinson is decisive, though not solitary.[25] They suffered much
from mental irritation: when taken with disease, they often refused
sustenance, and died in delirium. The wife, or the husband in perfect
health, when bereaved, would immediately sicken, and rapidly pine
away.[26]

Count Strzelecki has propounded a curious notion of the laws of
extinction, in reference to this race. He states that the mother of a
half-caste can never produce a black child, and thus the race dies. His
statement would need the most positive and uniform testimony; but it may
be added to the curiosities of literature. The decrease of population
among the inferior race, when harassed or licentious, is certain; but
surely there is nothing occult in this, or requiring further explanation
than is afforded by human cruelty and vice.

Among those who survive, is the wife of the native Walter George
Arthur, the half-caste daughter of Sarah an aboriginal woman. [Look