is degraded state; and, nevertheless,
it may be correct to class the nation of the former among barbarians,
and that of the latter among civilized people. But in forming our
judgment respecting the real character of the natives of the Bush we
must beware lest we try them by our own standard,--a standard by which
it is unjust to measure them, since they have never known it, nor ever
had the means of reaching it.[37] Every wise man will make all possible
allowance for the effect of many generations of ignorance and
degradation upon the human soul, and when this has been fairly done, the
truly wise man, the humble Christian, whilst he reads of the deplorable
condition to which the human soul may be reduced, (as it is shown in the
instance before us,) will feel disposed to ask himself, "Who made thee
to differ from others? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive?"

[36] One crime, in which the inhabitants of the neighbouring islands of
New Zealand notoriously indulge, has been charged also upon the people
of New Holland; but, since no mention of their _cannibalism_ is made by
those British travellers who have seen most of the habits of the
natives, it is hoped that the charge is an unfounded one. See, however,
M. Martin's New South Wales, pp. 151-2, and the instance of _Gome Boak_,
in Collins' History of New South Wales, p. 285; and Sturt's Expeditions
in Australia, vol. ii. p. 222.

[37] Nay, our fellow-countrymen in the Australian colonies, can, by no
means, endure a strict trial, even by their own rule of right. Take,
for instance, the following very common case:--The kangaroo disappears
from cattle-runs, and is also killed by stockmen, merely for the sake of
the skin; but no mercy is shown to the natives who may help themselves
to a bullock or a sheep. They do not, it is true, breed and feed the
kangaroos as our people rear and fatten cattle, but, at least, the wild
animals are bred and fed upon their land, and consequently belong to
them.

The native population of Australia is very peculiar in many respects,
not exactly resembling any other known race of human beings in the
world. They are more nearly akin to the Africans than to any others, and
they have, accordingly, been sometimes called _the Eastern Negroes_,
having the same thick lips, high cheek-bones, sunken eyes, and legs
without calves, which distinguish the native of Africa; but, with the
exception of Van Diemen's La