Perth from King's Park. I can never look down on the panorama of that
young and lovely city from the natural parkland on the crest of Mount
Eliza that is its crowning glory without a vision of the past, the dim
and timeless past when a sylvan people wandered its woods untrammelled,
with no care or thought for yesterday or to-morrow, or of a world other
than their own. Scarcely a hundred years have passed since that symmetry
of streets and suburbs was a pathless bushland, a tangle of trees and
scrub and swamp with the broad blue ribbon of river running through it,
widening from a thread of silver at the foot of the ranges to the estuary
marshes and the sea.
Through it all, a kangaroo skin slung carelessly over his shoulders, a
few spears in his hand, strode the first landlord, catching fish in the
river-shallows, spearing the emu and the kangaroo, and finding the roots
and fruits that were his daily bread. His women and children meekly
followed, carrying his spare weapons, their own household gods, and
perhaps a baby swung in the kangaroo-skin bag. Every spring and gully,
every quaintly distorted tree, every patch of red ochre or white
pipe-clay was his landmark, and every point, hill, valley, slope or flat
from the river's source to its mouth had its name. Simple in his needs in
a land of plenty, knowing none other than the age-old laws of life, and
mating, and death, that have been his through the unreasoning centuries,
he was a barbarian, but his lot was happy. As far as humans can, he lived
in perfect amity with his fellows.
For hundreds of miles about him the people of the country were all his
kindred, and the campfires dotting the river-flats, and the ranges, and
the sea-coasts, and the great timber-forests were fires of friendliness.
As I dream, the red glow of those fires of fancy grows hard and cold and
yellow, regular as the street-lights of a city, and the ranges beyond
them are lost in the shadow-even as the last of their people. Of the
songs that rang to the stars in the far-off time there is no echo. The
black man survived the coming of the white for little more than one
lifetime. When Captain Stirling landed on the coast in 1829, he computed
the aboriginal population of what he had marked out as the metropolitan
area at 1,500 natives. In 1907 we buried Joobaitch, last of the Perth
tribe.
Chapter I
MEETING WITH THE ABORIGINES
As I dream over the orphaned land of the Bibbulmum, [See Chapter VII.]
my thoughts fly back, too, to the events which brought me on a second
visit to Australia after a period of journalism in London with W.T.
Stead, on the Review of Reviews, back to the stone-age nomads whom I had
but glimpsed on my first visit to Australia, but among whom the rest of
my life was to be cast. It was in 1899 that circumstances made possible
my return to Australia.
Just before I left London a letter had been published in The Times
containing strong allegations of cruelty to Western Australian aborigines
by the white settlers of the North-West. I called upon The Times, stated
that I was going to Western Australia and offered to make full
investigation of the charges, and to write them the results. The offer
was accepted.
While friends were bidding me farewell, one of them espied a kindly old
Roman Catholic padre on deck, and asked him to "keep an eye" on me on the
voyage out. The priest was an Italian named Martelli, and on the deck the
first evening we embarked on a delightful friendship that lasted till his
death. I studied Italian under his tutelage, until one day I mentioned
the subject of the Australian natives, and showed Dean Martelli the
letter in The Times. Italian grammars were promptly put aside as I gained
my first knowledge of the remnants of a fading race, and the problem they
afforded the Government and the missions in the Western State. I learned
also of the Beagle Bay Mission, away in the wilds of the North-West,
where the Trappist fathers had come from their beautiful old home
monasteries among the vineyards of Sept Fons in France in rigours and
difficulties to minister to the aborigines in the vicinity of Broome.
1102423323
young and lovely city from the natural parkland on the crest of Mount
Eliza that is its crowning glory without a vision of the past, the dim
and timeless past when a sylvan people wandered its woods untrammelled,
with no care or thought for yesterday or to-morrow, or of a world other
than their own. Scarcely a hundred years have passed since that symmetry
of streets and suburbs was a pathless bushland, a tangle of trees and
scrub and swamp with the broad blue ribbon of river running through it,
widening from a thread of silver at the foot of the ranges to the estuary
marshes and the sea.
Through it all, a kangaroo skin slung carelessly over his shoulders, a
few spears in his hand, strode the first landlord, catching fish in the
river-shallows, spearing the emu and the kangaroo, and finding the roots
and fruits that were his daily bread. His women and children meekly
followed, carrying his spare weapons, their own household gods, and
perhaps a baby swung in the kangaroo-skin bag. Every spring and gully,
every quaintly distorted tree, every patch of red ochre or white
pipe-clay was his landmark, and every point, hill, valley, slope or flat
from the river's source to its mouth had its name. Simple in his needs in
a land of plenty, knowing none other than the age-old laws of life, and
mating, and death, that have been his through the unreasoning centuries,
he was a barbarian, but his lot was happy. As far as humans can, he lived
in perfect amity with his fellows.
For hundreds of miles about him the people of the country were all his
kindred, and the campfires dotting the river-flats, and the ranges, and
the sea-coasts, and the great timber-forests were fires of friendliness.
As I dream, the red glow of those fires of fancy grows hard and cold and
yellow, regular as the street-lights of a city, and the ranges beyond
them are lost in the shadow-even as the last of their people. Of the
songs that rang to the stars in the far-off time there is no echo. The
black man survived the coming of the white for little more than one
lifetime. When Captain Stirling landed on the coast in 1829, he computed
the aboriginal population of what he had marked out as the metropolitan
area at 1,500 natives. In 1907 we buried Joobaitch, last of the Perth
tribe.
Chapter I
MEETING WITH THE ABORIGINES
As I dream over the orphaned land of the Bibbulmum, [See Chapter VII.]
my thoughts fly back, too, to the events which brought me on a second
visit to Australia after a period of journalism in London with W.T.
Stead, on the Review of Reviews, back to the stone-age nomads whom I had
but glimpsed on my first visit to Australia, but among whom the rest of
my life was to be cast. It was in 1899 that circumstances made possible
my return to Australia.
Just before I left London a letter had been published in The Times
containing strong allegations of cruelty to Western Australian aborigines
by the white settlers of the North-West. I called upon The Times, stated
that I was going to Western Australia and offered to make full
investigation of the charges, and to write them the results. The offer
was accepted.
While friends were bidding me farewell, one of them espied a kindly old
Roman Catholic padre on deck, and asked him to "keep an eye" on me on the
voyage out. The priest was an Italian named Martelli, and on the deck the
first evening we embarked on a delightful friendship that lasted till his
death. I studied Italian under his tutelage, until one day I mentioned
the subject of the Australian natives, and showed Dean Martelli the
letter in The Times. Italian grammars were promptly put aside as I gained
my first knowledge of the remnants of a fading race, and the problem they
afforded the Government and the missions in the Western State. I learned
also of the Beagle Bay Mission, away in the wilds of the North-West,
where the Trappist fathers had come from their beautiful old home
monasteries among the vineyards of Sept Fons in France in rigours and
difficulties to minister to the aborigines in the vicinity of Broome.
The Passing of the Aborigines
Perth from King's Park. I can never look down on the panorama of that
young and lovely city from the natural parkland on the crest of Mount
Eliza that is its crowning glory without a vision of the past, the dim
and timeless past when a sylvan people wandered its woods untrammelled,
with no care or thought for yesterday or to-morrow, or of a world other
than their own. Scarcely a hundred years have passed since that symmetry
of streets and suburbs was a pathless bushland, a tangle of trees and
scrub and swamp with the broad blue ribbon of river running through it,
widening from a thread of silver at the foot of the ranges to the estuary
marshes and the sea.
Through it all, a kangaroo skin slung carelessly over his shoulders, a
few spears in his hand, strode the first landlord, catching fish in the
river-shallows, spearing the emu and the kangaroo, and finding the roots
and fruits that were his daily bread. His women and children meekly
followed, carrying his spare weapons, their own household gods, and
perhaps a baby swung in the kangaroo-skin bag. Every spring and gully,
every quaintly distorted tree, every patch of red ochre or white
pipe-clay was his landmark, and every point, hill, valley, slope or flat
from the river's source to its mouth had its name. Simple in his needs in
a land of plenty, knowing none other than the age-old laws of life, and
mating, and death, that have been his through the unreasoning centuries,
he was a barbarian, but his lot was happy. As far as humans can, he lived
in perfect amity with his fellows.
For hundreds of miles about him the people of the country were all his
kindred, and the campfires dotting the river-flats, and the ranges, and
the sea-coasts, and the great timber-forests were fires of friendliness.
As I dream, the red glow of those fires of fancy grows hard and cold and
yellow, regular as the street-lights of a city, and the ranges beyond
them are lost in the shadow-even as the last of their people. Of the
songs that rang to the stars in the far-off time there is no echo. The
black man survived the coming of the white for little more than one
lifetime. When Captain Stirling landed on the coast in 1829, he computed
the aboriginal population of what he had marked out as the metropolitan
area at 1,500 natives. In 1907 we buried Joobaitch, last of the Perth
tribe.
Chapter I
MEETING WITH THE ABORIGINES
As I dream over the orphaned land of the Bibbulmum, [See Chapter VII.]
my thoughts fly back, too, to the events which brought me on a second
visit to Australia after a period of journalism in London with W.T.
Stead, on the Review of Reviews, back to the stone-age nomads whom I had
but glimpsed on my first visit to Australia, but among whom the rest of
my life was to be cast. It was in 1899 that circumstances made possible
my return to Australia.
Just before I left London a letter had been published in The Times
containing strong allegations of cruelty to Western Australian aborigines
by the white settlers of the North-West. I called upon The Times, stated
that I was going to Western Australia and offered to make full
investigation of the charges, and to write them the results. The offer
was accepted.
While friends were bidding me farewell, one of them espied a kindly old
Roman Catholic padre on deck, and asked him to "keep an eye" on me on the
voyage out. The priest was an Italian named Martelli, and on the deck the
first evening we embarked on a delightful friendship that lasted till his
death. I studied Italian under his tutelage, until one day I mentioned
the subject of the Australian natives, and showed Dean Martelli the
letter in The Times. Italian grammars were promptly put aside as I gained
my first knowledge of the remnants of a fading race, and the problem they
afforded the Government and the missions in the Western State. I learned
also of the Beagle Bay Mission, away in the wilds of the North-West,
where the Trappist fathers had come from their beautiful old home
monasteries among the vineyards of Sept Fons in France in rigours and
difficulties to minister to the aborigines in the vicinity of Broome.
young and lovely city from the natural parkland on the crest of Mount
Eliza that is its crowning glory without a vision of the past, the dim
and timeless past when a sylvan people wandered its woods untrammelled,
with no care or thought for yesterday or to-morrow, or of a world other
than their own. Scarcely a hundred years have passed since that symmetry
of streets and suburbs was a pathless bushland, a tangle of trees and
scrub and swamp with the broad blue ribbon of river running through it,
widening from a thread of silver at the foot of the ranges to the estuary
marshes and the sea.
Through it all, a kangaroo skin slung carelessly over his shoulders, a
few spears in his hand, strode the first landlord, catching fish in the
river-shallows, spearing the emu and the kangaroo, and finding the roots
and fruits that were his daily bread. His women and children meekly
followed, carrying his spare weapons, their own household gods, and
perhaps a baby swung in the kangaroo-skin bag. Every spring and gully,
every quaintly distorted tree, every patch of red ochre or white
pipe-clay was his landmark, and every point, hill, valley, slope or flat
from the river's source to its mouth had its name. Simple in his needs in
a land of plenty, knowing none other than the age-old laws of life, and
mating, and death, that have been his through the unreasoning centuries,
he was a barbarian, but his lot was happy. As far as humans can, he lived
in perfect amity with his fellows.
For hundreds of miles about him the people of the country were all his
kindred, and the campfires dotting the river-flats, and the ranges, and
the sea-coasts, and the great timber-forests were fires of friendliness.
As I dream, the red glow of those fires of fancy grows hard and cold and
yellow, regular as the street-lights of a city, and the ranges beyond
them are lost in the shadow-even as the last of their people. Of the
songs that rang to the stars in the far-off time there is no echo. The
black man survived the coming of the white for little more than one
lifetime. When Captain Stirling landed on the coast in 1829, he computed
the aboriginal population of what he had marked out as the metropolitan
area at 1,500 natives. In 1907 we buried Joobaitch, last of the Perth
tribe.
Chapter I
MEETING WITH THE ABORIGINES
As I dream over the orphaned land of the Bibbulmum, [See Chapter VII.]
my thoughts fly back, too, to the events which brought me on a second
visit to Australia after a period of journalism in London with W.T.
Stead, on the Review of Reviews, back to the stone-age nomads whom I had
but glimpsed on my first visit to Australia, but among whom the rest of
my life was to be cast. It was in 1899 that circumstances made possible
my return to Australia.
Just before I left London a letter had been published in The Times
containing strong allegations of cruelty to Western Australian aborigines
by the white settlers of the North-West. I called upon The Times, stated
that I was going to Western Australia and offered to make full
investigation of the charges, and to write them the results. The offer
was accepted.
While friends were bidding me farewell, one of them espied a kindly old
Roman Catholic padre on deck, and asked him to "keep an eye" on me on the
voyage out. The priest was an Italian named Martelli, and on the deck the
first evening we embarked on a delightful friendship that lasted till his
death. I studied Italian under his tutelage, until one day I mentioned
the subject of the Australian natives, and showed Dean Martelli the
letter in The Times. Italian grammars were promptly put aside as I gained
my first knowledge of the remnants of a fading race, and the problem they
afforded the Government and the missions in the Western State. I learned
also of the Beagle Bay Mission, away in the wilds of the North-West,
where the Trappist fathers had come from their beautiful old home
monasteries among the vineyards of Sept Fons in France in rigours and
difficulties to minister to the aborigines in the vicinity of Broome.
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Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940013680609 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | WDS Publishing |
| Publication date: | 01/19/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 212 KB |
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