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Show 520 NEW SOUTH WALES, Jan. 1836. more numerous than the first, and not so well clothed. This decrease, no doubt, must be partly owing to the introduction of spirits, to European diseases (even the milder ones of which, as the measles,* prove very destructive), and to the gradual extinction of the wild animals. It is said that numbers of their children invariably perish in very early infancy from the effects of their wandering life. As the difficulty of procuring food increases, so must their wandering habits ; and hence the population, without any apparent deaths from famine, is repressed in a manner extremely sudden compared to what happens in civilized countries, where the father may add to his labour, without destroying his offspring. Besides these several evident causes of destruction, there appears to be some more mysterious agency generally at work. Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal. We may look to the wide extent of the Americas, Polynesia, the Cape of Good Hope, and Australia, and we shall find the same result. Nor is it the white man alone, that thus acts the destroyer; the Polynesian of Malay extraction has in parts of the East Indian archipelago, thus driven before him the dark-coloured native. The varieties of man seem to act on each other; in the same way as different species of animals-the stronger I always extirpating the weaker. It was melancholy at New Zealand to hear the fine energetic natives saying, they knew the land was doomed to pass from their children. Every one has heard of the inexplicable reduction of the population in the beautiful and healthy island of Tahiti since the date of Captain Cook's voyages : although in that case we might have expected it would have been otherwise; for infanticide, which formerly * It is remarkable how the same disease is modified in different climates. At the little island of St. Helena, the introduction of scarlet fever is dreaded as a plague. In some countries, foreigners and natives are as differently affected by certain contagious disorders, as if they had been different animals ; of which fact some instances have occurred in Chile ; and, according to Humboldt, in Mexico. (Polit. Essay on Kingdom of New Spain, vol, iv.) Jan. 1836. EXTINCTION OF ABORIGINES. 521 prevailed to so extraordinary a degree, has ceased, and the murderous wars have become less frequent. The Rev. J. Williams, in his interesting work,* says, that the first intercourse between natives and Europeans, "is invariably attended with the introduction of fever, dysentery, or some other disease, which carries off numbers of the people." Again he affirms, " It is certainly a fact, which cannot be controverted, that most of the diseases which have raged in the islands during my residence there, have been introduced by ships ;t and what renders this fact remarkable is, that there might be no appearance of disease among the crew of the ship, which conveyed this destructive importation." This statement is not quite so extraordinary as it at first appears ; for several cases are on record of the most malignant fevers having broken out, although the parties themselves, who were the cause, were not affected. In the early part of the reign of George III., a prisoner who had been confined in a dungeon, was taken in a coach with four constables before a magistrate ; and, although the man himself was not ill, the four constables died from a short putrid fever ; but the contagion extended to no others. * Narrative of Missionary Enterprise, p. 282. t Captain Beechey (chap. iv ., vol. i.) states that the inhabitants of Pitcairn Island, are firmly convinced that after the arrival of every ship they suffer cutaneous and other disorders. -Captain Beechey attributes this to the change of diet during the time of the visit. Dr. Macculloch ·(Western Isles, vol. ii., p. 32) says, " It is asserted, that on the arrival of a stranger (at St. Kilda) all the inhabitants, in the common phraseology, catch a cold." Dr. Macculloch considers the whole case, although often previously affirmed, as ludicrous. He adds, however, that " the question was put by us to the inhabitants who unanimously agreed in the story.'' In Vancouver's Voyage, there is a somewhat similar statement with respect to Otaheite: nor are these (as I believe) the only instances. Humboldt (Polit. Essay on King. of New Spain, vol. iv.) says, that the great epidemics at Panama and Callao are "marked" by the arrival of ships from Chile, because the people from that temperate region, first experience the fatal effects of the torrid zones. I may add, that I have heard it stated in Shropshire, that sheep, which have been imported from vessels, although th~mselves in a healthy condition, if placed in the same fold with others, frequently produce sickness in the flock. . |