Having read very strong statements for and against the Aborigines, in my many journeys twenty-four years ago I resolved to embrace every opportunity of learning their customs and beliefs directly from themselves. I have also seen their disgusting “Corrobbarees,” and know by facts how demoralizing these Heathen dances are. I know also what strong drink has done amongst them. Who wonders that the dark races melt away before the _whites_? The pioneers of civilization _will_ carry with them this demon of strong drink, the fruitful parent of every other vice. The black people drink, and become unmanageable; and through the white man’s own poison-gift an excuse is found for sweeping the poor creatures off the face of the earth. Marsden’s writings show how our Australian blacks are destroyed. But I have myself been on the track of such butcheries again and again. A Victorian lady told me the following incident. She heard a child’s pitiful cry in the bush. On tracing it, she found a little girl weeping over her younger brother. She said,— “The white men poisoned our father and mother. They threaten to shoot me, so that I dare not go near them. I am here, weeping over my brother till we die!” The compassionate lady promised to be a mother to the little sufferers, and to protect them. They instantly clung to her, and have proved themselves to be loving and dutiful ever since. In Queensland itself, the Native Police, armed and mounted—accompanied by only _one_ white officer, that no tales might be told—were reported to be regularly sent out to “scatter” the blacks! That meant, in many a case, wholesale murder. But in 1887, the humane Sir Samuel Griffiths, premier, had these blood-stained forces disbanded for ever. The _Sydney Morning Herald_, 21st March, 1883, contains stronger things than were ever penned or uttered by me as to the wholesale destruction of the Aborigines. The watchword of the white settlers, practically if not theoretically, has been, “Clear them out of the way, and give us the soil!”