I find here that it does not do to use the word _native_, as we are wont to do, with reference to the brown races. Here it is applied exclusively to white men born in the country, the hideous blacks being invariably described as _aborigines_. Hideous indeed they are, far beyond any race I have yet met with; and of so low a type that it is impossible, in their case, to regret that strange law of nature which seems to ordain the dying out of dark skinned races before the advance of civilisation, and which is nowhere so self-evident as in Australia, where they have simply faded away, notwithstanding the strict observance of their own most elaborate marriage laws, which set forth the various degrees of relationship between different tribes, and the rotations in which alone they are permitted to marry. Perhaps, however, if all tales be true concerning the ruthless policy of extermination practised by too many of the settlers on the frontier, and the manner in which tribes have been shot down wholesale for daring to trespass on the lands taken from them without any sort of right the extinction of the Australian black may be found to be less a law of nature than an illustration of the might that makes right. But certainly the few specimens we have come across have been unspeakably wretched, living in gipsy camps far more miserable than those of any British tinker, altogether dirty and debased. The Commodore rejoices us by saying that our Fijians are a very superior race, many of them really handsome, fine, stalwart men. He brought some Fijian yams on his return from the Isles, and had a dinner party, that we might all taste them. Anything Fijian is really as great a curiosity here as it would be in London. You know the Pearl took Sir Hercules to Fiji to make final arrangements about annexation; and when that business was settled, King Thakombau and his sons came to visit Sir Hercules and see something of civilisation. You can imagine how strange the great city must have seemed to men whose notion of a king’s palace is a one-roomed thatched house one storey high. The horses and carriages were still more wonderful; and as to the railway, that was beyond comprehension. But the old king took it all very philosophically, and was never so happy as when Lady Robinson’s little grand-daughter, a pretty little child with golden hair, crept on to his knee, whispering, “You won’t eat _me_, will you?” Or else he would lie down and rest on his own mat, keeping his big Bible beside him,—not that the old man could read it, for I believe his studies commenced rather too late in life, but he said “it made him feel so good!” * * * * * PFAHLERT’S HOTEL, _July 15_.