Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 01Eyre, Edward John
History
Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 01
Eyre, Edward John
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Ethnology -- Australia
Soon after we had encamped several natives came up and joined those with
us. They were exceedingly polite and orderly--indeed the best conducted,
most obliging natives I ever met with--never troubling or importuning for
any thing, and not crowding around in that unmannerly disagreeable
manner, which savages frequently adopt--nor did I ever find any of them
guilty of theft; on the contrary, several times when we had left some
article behind, they called to us, and pointed it out. To them we were
indebted for the facilities we had enjoyed in obtaining water; for
without their guidance, we could never have removed from any encampment
without previously ascertaining where the next water could be procured;
and to have done this would have caused us great delay, and much
additional toil. By having them with us we were enabled to move with
confidence and celerity; and in following their guidance we knew that we
were taking that line of route which was the shortest, and the best
practicable under the circumstances. Upon arriving at any of the watering
places to which they had conducted us, they always pointed out the water,
and gave it up to us entirely, no longer looking upon it as their own,
and literally not taking a drink from it themselves when thirsty, without
first asking permission from us. Surely this true politeness--this
genuine hospitality of the untutored savage, may well put to the blush,
for their exclusiveness and illiberality, his more civilised brethren. In
how strong a light does such simple kindness of the inhabitant of the
wilds to Europeans travelling through his country (when his fears are not
excited or his prejudices violated,) stand contrasted with the treatment
he experiences from them when they occupy his country, and dispossess him
of his all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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