condition, to find his way back to the Darling—an exhibition of courage which made the white men ashamed of themselves. The poor fellow traversed hundreds of miles, and arrived at Menindie—not figuratively, but literally—with the skin off his feet. But language is totally inadequate to describe the toilsome, chivalrous, and perilous journey undertaken by the native to relieve his white friends—an act that shows even amongst 'the poor, half-witted natives of Victoria' (as some are pleased to term them) there are those to be found who in the hour of danger can put the most civilized persons to the blush by their courage and devotedness."
Mr. A. Porteous, a Local Guardian of Aborigines, makes mention of a native who was faithful, courageous, and honest. He says:—"The Aborigine who died on the 6th instant (May 1872) did an act, over thirty years ago, that might justly be recorded to his honor. At that early period the Aborigines knew nothing of civilization or the law of honor, but those not having the law are sometimes a law unto themselves. In the year 1838 the Mount Emu tribe was very numerous and warlike, and was a terror to many of their neighbours and also to the white man; every hut had two or three stand of arms. At one of the Mount Emu out-station huts the hutkeeper absconded (while the tribe was camped close to the hut), leaving the hut, with all it contaiued, in their hands. In the hut was a quantity of flour, sugar, tea, and meat, two or three stand of arms, bedding and clothing, belonging to two shepherds who were out with their sheep. A number of the tribe wanted to take everything that was in the hut and be off with it. When Billy heard what was proposed, he sprang into the hut and got a gun, and stood in the door, and told his companions that if any of them attempted to take anything he would shoot them, and ordered one of them to go to the home-station and tell the manager to send a white man to take charge of the hut; and Billy kept possession until the white man came. During the last thirty-one years that I have known Billy his life has been in accordance with this act, sterlingly upright and full of kindness; and I much regret to have to record his death."
Major Mitchell had a good opinion of some of the natives he met with in his several expeditions. He says, "My experience enables me to speak in the most favorable terms of the Aborigines, whose degraded position in the midst of the white population affords no just criterion of their merits. The quickness of apprehension of those in the interior was very extraordinary, for nothing in all the complicated adaptations we carried with us either surprised or puzzled them. They are never awkward; on the contrary, in manners and intelligence, they appear superior to any class of white rustics that I have seen. Their powers of mimicry seem extraordinary, and their shrewdness shines even through the medium of imperfect language, and renders them, in general, very agreeable companions."
At Fort Bourke, a strange black who saw Mr. Larmer (one of Major Mitchell's party) fishing, gave him a fish; and a black who was shot at and hit by the overseer in self-defence, ran off yelling, but on Major Mitchell's running after him with a green branch in his hand, the poor fellow threw away his
