{"product_id":"2940013680609","title":"The Passing of the Aborigines","description":"Perth from King's Park. I can never look down on the panorama of that\u003cbr\u003eyoung and lovely city from the natural parkland on the crest of Mount\u003cbr\u003eEliza that is its crowning glory without a vision of the past, the dim\u003cbr\u003eand timeless past when a sylvan people wandered its woods untrammelled,\u003cbr\u003ewith no care or thought for yesterday or to-morrow, or of a world other\u003cbr\u003ethan their own. Scarcely a hundred years have passed since that symmetry\u003cbr\u003eof streets and suburbs was a pathless bushland, a tangle of trees and\u003cbr\u003escrub and swamp with the broad blue ribbon of river running through it,\u003cbr\u003ewidening from a thread of silver at the foot of the ranges to the estuary\u003cbr\u003emarshes and the sea.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough it all, a kangaroo skin slung carelessly over his shoulders, a\u003cbr\u003efew spears in his hand, strode the first landlord, catching fish in the\u003cbr\u003eriver-shallows, spearing the emu and the kangaroo, and finding the roots\u003cbr\u003eand fruits that were his daily bread. His women and children meekly\u003cbr\u003efollowed, carrying his spare weapons, their own household gods, and\u003cbr\u003eperhaps a baby swung in the kangaroo-skin bag. Every spring and gully,\u003cbr\u003eevery quaintly distorted tree, every patch of red ochre or white\u003cbr\u003epipe-clay was his landmark, and every point, hill, valley, slope or flat\u003cbr\u003efrom the river's source to its mouth had its name. Simple in his needs in\u003cbr\u003ea land of plenty, knowing none other than the age-old laws of life, and\u003cbr\u003emating, and death, that have been his through the unreasoning centuries,\u003cbr\u003ehe was a barbarian, but his lot was happy. As far as humans can, he lived\u003cbr\u003ein perfect amity with his fellows.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor hundreds of miles about him the people of the country were all his\u003cbr\u003ekindred, and the campfires dotting the river-flats, and the ranges, and\u003cbr\u003ethe sea-coasts, and the great timber-forests were fires of friendliness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs I dream, the red glow of those fires of fancy grows hard and cold and\u003cbr\u003eyellow, regular as the street-lights of a city, and the ranges beyond\u003cbr\u003ethem are lost in the shadow-even as the last of their people. Of the\u003cbr\u003esongs that rang to the stars in the far-off time there is no echo. The\u003cbr\u003eblack man survived the coming of the white for little more than one\u003cbr\u003elifetime. When Captain Stirling landed on the coast in 1829, he computed\u003cbr\u003ethe aboriginal population of what he had marked out as the metropolitan\u003cbr\u003earea at 1,500 natives. In 1907 we buried Joobaitch, last of the Perth\u003cbr\u003etribe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMEETING WITH THE ABORIGINES\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs I dream over the orphaned land of the Bibbulmum, [See Chapter VII.]\u003cbr\u003emy thoughts fly back, too, to the events which brought me on a second\u003cbr\u003evisit to Australia after a period of journalism in London with W.T.\u003cbr\u003eStead, on the Review of Reviews, back to the stone-age nomads whom I had\u003cbr\u003ebut glimpsed on my first visit to Australia, but among whom the rest of\u003cbr\u003emy life was to be cast. It was in 1899 that circumstances made possible\u003cbr\u003emy return to Australia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust before I left London a letter had been published in The Times\u003cbr\u003econtaining strong allegations of cruelty to Western Australian aborigines\u003cbr\u003eby the white settlers of the North-West. I called upon The Times, stated\u003cbr\u003ethat I was going to Western Australia and offered to make full\u003cbr\u003einvestigation of the charges, and to write them the results. The offer\u003cbr\u003ewas accepted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile friends were bidding me farewell, one of them espied a kindly old\u003cbr\u003eRoman Catholic padre on deck, and asked him to \"keep an eye\" on me on the\u003cbr\u003evoyage out. The priest was an Italian named Martelli, and on the deck the\u003cbr\u003efirst evening we embarked on a delightful friendship that lasted till his\u003cbr\u003edeath. I studied Italian under his tutelage, until one day I mentioned\u003cbr\u003ethe subject of the Australian natives, and showed Dean Martelli the\u003cbr\u003eletter in The Times. Italian grammars were promptly put aside as I gained\u003cbr\u003emy first knowledge of the remnants of a fading race, and the problem they\u003cbr\u003eafforded the Government and the missions in the Western State. I learned\u003cbr\u003ealso of the Beagle Bay Mission, away in the wilds of the North-West,\u003cbr\u003ewhere the Trappist fathers had come from their beautiful old home\u003cbr\u003emonasteries among the vineyards of Sept Fons in France in rigours and\u003cbr\u003edifficulties to minister to the aborigines in the vicinity of Broome.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47079794442480,"sku":"2940013680609","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013680609_p0.jpg?v=1763584416","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013680609","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}