The term sealers is no longer so appropriate as it was formerly; none of them confining themselves to sealing, in consequence of the increasing scarcity of the object of their original pursuit. Straitsmen is the name by which those who inhabit the eastern and western entrance of Bass Strait are known; they class themselves into Eastern and Western Straitsmen, and give the following account of their origin: Between the years 1800 and 1805, the islands in Bass Strait and those fronting the south coast of Australia, as far westward as the Gulfs of St. Vincent and Spencer were frequented by sealing vessels from the old and the new country, if I may use this expression for England and Australia. Many of their crews became so attached to the islands they were in the habit of visiting, that when their vessels were about to leave the neighbourhood, they preferred to remain, taking with them a boat and other stores as payment for their work. There can be no doubt, however, that their numbers were afterwards recruited by runaway convicts. NATIVE WIVES. On one island reside seldom more than two families. The latter word will at once satisfy the reader that these people were not deprived of the pleasures of female companionship: man was never born to be satisfied with his own society; and the Straitsmen of course found beauties suitable to their taste in the natives of the shores* of Bass Strait. It appears that a party of them were sealing St. George's Rocks when a tribe came down on the main opposite and made a signal for them to approach. They went, taking with them the carcasses of two or three seals, for which the natives gave as many women. These, perhaps, were glad of the change, as the aborigines of Tasmania often treat them shamefully. The sealers took their new-bought sweethearts to an island in Banks Strait, and there left them to go on another sealing excursion. Returning one day, they were surprised to find their huts well supplied with wallaby by the native women. Interest cemented a love that might otherwise have been but temporary. Visions of fortunes accumulated by the sale of wallaby skins flashed across the minds of the sealers; who, however, to their credit be it spoken, generally treated their savage spouses with anything but unkindness; though in some instances the contrary was the case. It must be confessed, at the same time, that having once discovered the utility of the native women, they did not confine themselves to obtaining them by the lawful way of barter; making excursions, principally to the shores of Australia, for the express purpose of obtaining by violence or stealth such valuable partners. (*Footnote. The islands were never inhabited by the aborigines until the remnant of the original population of Tasmania was sent by government to Flinders.) HALF-CASTE CHILDREN.