If we ask any of the black men of the present generation the significance of these rock sculptures, they usually reply, in their broken English, "Black fellow make 'em long time ago," and on being pressed more particularly as to their age, they throw up their hands and faces, shut their eyes, and say, "Murrey, murrey, murrey, long time ago!" The great variety of theories commonly received as to the supposed origin of this singular race of men have done little to dispel the obscurity which prevails as to the real _stirps_ of which the Australian race is a branch. Writers who are fond of squaring facts with pre-conceived theories maintain that the first inhabitants of Australia came from Eastern Asia or the Indian Archipelago, and passing Torres Straits gradually overspread the entire Australian continent. Nay, some even go so far as to maintain that there exists to this time in the interior of some of the islands of the Malay Archipelago a race of men identical with the aborigines of Australia. And it certainly is a remarkable fact, that most of the Australian war-songs, dances, &c., have been diffused from north to south, although it does seem venturesome to deduce from this single circumstance a migration from Eastern Asia. Others again hold (such, namely, as Prichard, Wappaus, Burdach, &c.), that the aborigines are of the same race as that inhabiting New Guinea and New Caledonia, and thus make them of the same stock as the Australasian negro. Lastly, a modern naturalist, Mr. James Brown, who lived sixteen years amongst the blacks, considers it not improbable that some Malay crews (for since time immemorial it is known that the Malays have been acquainted with, and visited the northern shores of, Australia) had been, by shipwreck or some similar calamity, cast away on the coast of the mainland, or on some of the islands near Torres Straits, and had thus become the first involuntary settlers of the north of Australia. This increasing population gradually spread over the interior, and when after some centuries this people had traversed the continent and arrived at the ocean on its further side, they had already lost all recollection of their Pelagic origin, and were no longer capable of deriving any advantage from the sea spread before their astonished gaze. Strange to say, the black populations of Australia seem to be the sole savage race inhabiting the coast of an ocean, who possess no means of transport by water, and are unable to swim! Very possibly the recent expeditions into the interior, undertaken with such ardour and attention to details, may throw some new light upon these aborigines, but equally, if not more, probable is it, that the entire race may have disappeared from the earth before any reliable facts can be ascertained respecting their origin, their migrations, or their history.