In glum silence, their war weapons still grasped in their hands, they stood looking intently at me, doubting whether I could be in earnest. I urged them,— “You all promised to do what I asked. If you break your promise, these white men will laugh at me, and say that black fellows only lie and deceive. Let them see that you can be trusted. I wait here till I see you all asleep.” One said that his head was cut, and he must have revenge before he could lie down. Others filed past showing their wounds, and declaring that it was too bad to request them to go to sleep. I praised them as far as I could, but urged them for once to be men and to keep their word. Finally they all agreed to lie down, I waiting till the last man had disappeared; and, being doubly exhausted with the debauch and the fighting, they were soon all fast asleep. I prayed that the blessed Sleep might lull their savage passions. Before daylight next morning, the Minister and I were hastening to the scene to prevent further fighting; but as the sun was rising we saw the last tribe of the distant Natives disappearing over the brow of a hill. A small party belonging to the district alone remained. They shouted to us, “Black fellow all gone! No more fight. You too much like black fellow!” For three days afterwards I had still to linger there; and if their dogs ran or barked at me, the women chased them with sticks and stones, and protected me. One little touch of kindness and sympathy had unlocked their darkened hearts. The Aborigines of Australia have been regarded as perhaps the most degraded portion of the human race, at least in the Southern Hemisphere. Like the Papuans of our Islands, they rank betwixt Malay and Negro in colour and appearance. Their hair, coarse, black, curly, but not woolly; eyes, dark and yellowish, with very heavy eyebrows; nose flat, with hole bored through septum, in which ornament is hung; small chin, thick lips, large mouth, and lustrous teeth; high cheek bones, with sunken eyes and well-developed brow. Like all Savages in their natural state, they were nearly nude, filthy, and wretched; especially in winter, when covered with kangaroo and opossum skins, which they hung around themselves loosely by day, and under which they slept at night. They sometimes daubed their bodies all over with paint, mud, charcoal, or ashes. Their women are generally of a slender build. All these features and notes are true of many of our South Sea Islanders too; but they, again, are decidedly of a higher type. On many of the Islands, faces, though dark, are as pleasant and as well formed as amongst Europeans. Besides, the Islanders are not nomadic; they live in settled villages, and cultivate the land for their support.