FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>   >|  
_Commandant's Office, Flinders' Island._ 1836-- DEATHS: December 24.--The native youth, George. 30.--The native man, Nimrod. 1837-- January 28.--The native man, Columbus. 29.--The native woman, Pupedar. February 5.--Of acute pneumonia, the native man Samuel. 20.--Of chronic visceral inflammation, the native man, Algernon. 25.--Of the same, the native man, Matthew. 26.--Of the same, native man, Omega. 29.--Of the same, native woman, Truedeberrie. March 16.--The native woman, Tyree. 21.--The native woman, Queen Charlotte. 30.--The native woman, Manoon, ditto Maria, and an infant. J. ALLEN, _Surgeon_. June 3.--Of extreme debility, Daniel. 20.--Of inflammation in the intestines, the aboriginal native, King William. A. AUSTIN, _Medical Attendant_. --_Parliamentary Papers_.] SECTION X. _Origin._--The traditions of the natives afford no clue to their origin. They are, perhaps, a branch of the Australasian family settled in New Holland(?). _Mocha_, is the name for water among the western tribe of this island: it is known by the same sound at Cape Leeuwin, on the continent. Though boats were not employed, they constructed a catamaran of bark, or decayed wood, of the specific gravity of cork: these materials, tied together, enabled them to pass to the islands of the Straits. Lieutenant Gunn found at Maria Island, and preserved for several months, a catamaran, sufficiently tight and strong to drift for sixteen or twenty miles: each would convey from four to seven persons. The catamaran described by the French naturalist, found in Adventure Bay, was made of pieces of bark, and held together by cords made of grass, and assumed the appearance of meshes worked in the form of a _pentagon_. Mr. Taw, the pilot of Macquarie Harbour, saw the natives cross the river: on this occasion, a man swam on either side of the raft--formed of the bark of the "swamp tree." The distance between the islets is not sufficient to shut us up to the notion of a local creation.[28] A New Holland woman, taken to Flinders', remembered a tradition, that her ancestors had driven out the original inhabitants--the fathers, it is _conjectured_, of the Tasmanian race. History carries us back to the year 1642, and it is in vain to seek authentic information from a people destitute of records, and perpetually wandering. The time between the first visit a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

native

 

catamaran

 

Flinders

 
inflammation
 
natives
 

Holland

 

Island

 

islands

 
worked
 

pentagon


meshes
 

appearance

 

pieces

 

assumed

 

Straits

 

sixteen

 

twenty

 

strong

 
sufficiently
 

preserved


persons

 

French

 

naturalist

 

months

 

Lieutenant

 

convey

 

Adventure

 

Tasmanian

 

conjectured

 

History


carries

 

fathers

 
inhabitants
 

ancestors

 

driven

 

original

 

wandering

 
perpetually
 
records
 

destitute


authentic

 
information
 

people

 

occasion

 
Macquarie
 
Harbour
 

formed

 

creation

 

remembered

 

tradition