there. They visited them for the purpose of obtaining woods suitable for making weapons, feathers for ornament, birds and beasts for food, and for the tree-fern, the heart of which is good to eat, and for other vegetable productions.
The wide, treeless, basaltic plains which stretch from the River Wannon on the west to the River Moorabool on the east, and from Mount Cole on the north to the southern shores of Lake Korangamite on the south—an area of 8,000 square miles—were occupied by numerous small tribes. The banks of all the lakes, rivers, and creeks were frequented by them; and the ancient mirrn-yong heaps and the low walls of stone erected for shelter or other purposes are still to be seen in many parts. The plains were the resort of the emu, the wild turkey, and the native companion, and the lakes and swamps were covered with wild-fowl.
The southern parts of the counties of Heytesbury and Polwarth, now known as the Cape Otway Forest, were for the most part probably unknown to the tribes who called the Colac and Korangamite country theirs. The labor attendant on a march through this densely-wooded district would not have been undertaken but in the pursuit of enemies; and it would never have been chosen by any savage people as a permanent abode. The rains of winter and the thick fogs of autumn and spring would have been fatal to the younger members of the tribes. Whether or not any families inhabited the river basins entirely separated from the tribes who had homes on the lands lying to the north and on the coast is not known. That the Coast tribes could and did penetrate many parts of this area is not denied, but it is scarcely probable that any tribe would live in the denser parts from year to year.
It is proper then, in estimating the area available to this people for permanent settlement, to eliminate those tracts which could not of themselves support throughout the year a single tribe, also those thickly-wooded and scrubby mountain ranges which the means at the command of the natives would not allow them to penetrate, and the result is that no more than 30,000,000 acres can be considered as open to them for ordinary uses. When, further, we regard their laws, which forbid unnecessary encroachment on the lands held by their neighbours (and all the lands peculiarly their own were set out and known by landmarks), and note the localities rich in stone fit for making hatchets (common to numerous widely-separated tribes), and the debatable grounds which year after year would be the scene of conflicts, we must again make a large deduction from the above estimate.
All that is known of the original condition of the natives of Victoria points to this: that the rivers were their homes. The River Murray from Albury to the River Lindsay was well peopled; the Rivers Mitta Mitta, Ovens, Goulburn, Campaspe, Loddon, Avoca, Avon, Richardson, Glenelg, and Wimmera gave refuge to many tribes; in the lake country and on the coast and in Gippsland the tribes were numerous and strong; but as regards the rest of the land included within the boundaries of Victoria, it was either unknown or but frequented for short periods in certain seasons.
It would appear therefore that Sir Thomas Mitchell's estimate of the number of Aborigines, based on calculations made after traversing a country
