annot advance. Some colonists were recently
startled, by the appearance of a white family from the remote interior:
they were found by a surveyor, who at first took them for savages; they
had the animal expression of the eye, which is so common to uncivilised
people.

The inferiority of the aboriginal mind is not to be denied. Intellectual
power is both hereditary and improvable: the exaltation of a generation
of men gives the infancy of the next a more forward starting point--what
was individual is diffused, until it becomes characteristic of the race.

They were fond of imitation, and humour: they had their drolls and
mountebanks: they were able to seize the peculiarities of individuals,
and exhibit them with considerable force.[34]

In several parts of the colony rude drawings have been discovered.
Cattle, kangaroo, and dogs, were traced in charcoal. These attempts were
exceedingly rude, and sometimes the artist was wholly unintelligible. At
Belvoir Vale, the natives saw the Company's two carts, drawn by six
oxen: they drew on bark the wheels, and the drivers with their whips.
They were the first that ever passed that region.

_Disposition._--They were cruel in their resentment; but not prone to
violence: that they did not shorten the sufferings of animals taken for
food, will hardly be considered by sportsmen decisive evidence against
them. They were not ungrateful; especially for medical relief, which
appeared a favor more unequivocal than presents of food.

A little boy, captured by a surveyor in 1828, when seen, sprang into the
water, where he remained for a long time: at first, he was greatly
alarmed, but soon became contented. He pointed to the lady of the house
as a lubra. Entering a room, where a young lady was seated, he was told
to kiss her: after long hesitation, he went up to her; laid his fingers
gently on her cheek, then kissed them, and ran out!

Some captives, taken by Mr. Batman, were lodged in the gaol: they became
strongly attached to the javelin man: they were treated by the gaoler
with studious compassion, and they _left the prison with tears_!

The English were seen by some friendly natives to draught the toad fish,
which is poison, and by which several have perished: the natives
perceiving its preparation for food, endeavoured to shew, by gestures,
that it was not to be eaten, and exhibited its effects by the semblance
of death. Not very long after, a native was shewn a pistol, which a
w