WM. THOMAS, Guardian of Aborigines. {62} SOUTH AUSTRALIA Having travelled much in Australia, America, and the West Indies, and having also resided on the Coast of Africa, where I penetrated a considerable distance into the interior, traversing the countries between the Gambia and the Senegal, and ascending the former river 600 miles, I was consequently frequently brought into contact with numerous aboriginal tribes of very different characters and descent, and under varying physical and external circumstances. I have, however, never seen natives whose general habits and physical conformation impressed me so completely with the idea of a perishable and doomed race as the aborigines of the southern portion of this continent. I may add that as I almost always find it necessary to release native prisoners before the expiration of their sentences, because death is apt to ensue from any prolonged confinement, I cannot but think that even the partial confinement in schools injuriously affects the native constitution, so nearly do they approximate to the lower animal creation. RICHARD GRAVES MACDONNELL, Governor. Adelaide, Nov. 23, 1860. The aboriginies of this colony (South Australia) have not a very wide range of disease from which they suffer. I have never seen a case of small-pox, scarlet fever, measles, or hooping cough, and I was officially connected with them for 18 years. Fever occurs, but not frequently, as they have no confined badly ventilated dwellings. Diarrhœa and dysentery make their appearance in the hot weather, and from five to ten per cent. of the cases prove fatal; these attacks occur most frequently during dentition, as with the Europeans. The brain and nervous system are seldom attacked primarily. In their native state they indulge in no stimulants, and are not guilty of overtaxing their mental powers. Consumption is common amongst them; and in every death that I have seen in the school children, there have been tubercular deposits in the lungs. The same occurs in the adults who have been six months and upwards confined in gaol; in fact, they cannot survive confinement in a prison beyond two years. Confine them two years and they will waste and die in a few months after liberation. The most fatal disease that has come under my notice is the venereal, contracted by contact with the Europeans. Males and females suffer alike from it, and die generally of secondary effects. As a race the aborigines are dying off and disappearing before a more highly civilized people, and must eventually disappear altogether. The venereal disease on the one hand, and the fact that the women are apt to become prostitutes, and in consequence cease to bear children, on the other, are reducing them at a very rapid rate. M. MOORHOUSE, Late Protector of Aborigines.