flesh. This, however, was done under some circumstances. When tribes assembled to eat the fruit of the Bunya-bunya, they were not permitted to take any game, and at length the craving for flesh was so intense that they were impelled to kill one of their number in order that their appetites might be satisfied.
It is creditable to them that they are ashamed of the practice. They usually deny that they ever ate human flesh, but as constantly allege that "wild blacks" are guilty of the crime. It is sad to relate that there are only too many well-authenticated instances of cannibalism; and the fact is apparent, too, that not seldom the natives destroyed the victim under circumstances of peculiar atrocity. It was not always done that they might comply with a custom, or that by eating portions of a body they might thereby acquire the courage and strength of the deceased. They undoubtedly on some occasions indulged in the horrible practice because they rejoiced in the savage banquet.
Unlike many other offences with which they are justly charged, but which because of their ignorance or because of the pressure of their necessities cannot be called crimes, this one in general they knew to be wrong. Their behaviour, when questioned on the subject, shows that they erred knowingly and wilfully. That they were not so bad as the men of Fiji and New Zealand is undoubtedly true, and so much perhaps may be said in their favor.
The Rev. John Bulmer, the Rev. A. Hartmann, the Rev. F. A. Hagenauer, and Mr. John Green, furnished, at my request, some years ago, statements as made by the blacks relative to the habits of some of the native animals, and their accounts are on the whole accurate. The blacks do not like to be questioned respecting matters in which they take no interest; they are also suspicious, and it is often impossible to obtain from them such information as they undoubtedly possess. The statements are, however, not without interest, though they are less valuable than might have been anticipated.
The diseases to which the natives were subject prior to the arrival of the whites were ophthalmia, caused by the heat and the flies—and Dampier rightly called them "the poor winking people of New Holland," when he saw them in the height of summer, on the north-west coast, maintaining an unequal fight with these pests; colds, owing to their careless mode of living and their habit of sleeping near a fire without a covering; hydatids in the liver and lungs, due probably to the imperfect cooking of their food; and eczematous diseases, caused by their living, in some places, principally on fish, and generally by their want of cleanliness. The latter diseases are in some cases of a very severe character, and the depilous people of parts of the interior have probably suffered from them. The late Mr. Thomas says that dogs, cats, and opossums that were kept as pets by any people having the more severe forms of skin disease were also affected and lost their hair.
The small-pox, supposed to have been introduced by the whites in 1788, was the cause of numerous deaths amongst the natives, and the pictures I have given in illustration of the ravages committed by this scourge are painful to contemplate. The blacks could not bury their dead, the father was separated from his family, and children fled from their parents. Tribes, it is believed,
