words to his vocabulary of the native
languages. But the public journals spoke of his labours and his
dictionary with contempt and derision. They said, "Pshaw! a few
mounted police, well armed, would effect more good among the
aborigines in one month than the whole preaching mob of protectors in
ten years."

When a race of men is exterminated somebody ought to bear the blame,
and the easiest way is to lay the fault at the door of the dead; they
never reply.

When every blackfellow in South Gippsland, except old Darriman, was
dead, Mr. Tyers explained his experience with the Government
blankets. They were now no longer required, as Darriman could obtain
plenty of old clothes from charitable white men. It had been the
commissioner's duty to give one blanket annually to each live native,
and thus that garment became to him the Queen's livery, and an emblem
of civilisation; it raised the savage in the scale of humanity and
encouraged him to take the first step in the march of progress. His
second step was into the grave. The result of the gift of blankets
was that the natives who received them ceased to clothe themselves
with the skins of the kangaroo, the bear or opossum. The rugs which
they had been used to make for themselves would keep out the rain,
and in them they could pass the wettest night or day in their
mia-mias, warm and dry. But the blankets we kindly gave them by way
of saving our souls were manufactured for the colonial market, and
would no more resist the rain than an old clothes-basket. The
consequence was that when the weather was cold and wet, the
blackfellow and his blanket were also cold and wet, and he began
to shiver; inflammation attacked his lungs, and rheumatism his limbs,
and he soon went to that land where neither blankets nor rugs are
required. Mr. Tyers was of opinion that more blacks were killed by
the blankets than by rum and bullets.

Government in Gippsland was advancing. There were two justices of
the peace, the commissioner, black and white police, a collector of
customs, a pilot, and last of all, a parson--parson Bean--who
quarrelled with his flock on the question of education. The sheep
refused to feed the shepherd; he had to shake the dust off his feet,
and the salvation of souls was, as usual, postponed to a more
convenient season. At length Mr. Latrobe himself undertook to pay a
visit to Gippsland. He was a splendid horseman, had long limbs like
King Edward Longshan