CHAPTER X.
THE SEALERS.
The rough sealers of the stormy Bass's Straits would form an interesting chapter in the early history of the colonies, apart from their association with the Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land, and the part they took in the Black War.
The primitive Straitsmen were runaway convicts, of a seafaring turn. On shore they would have been Bushrangers, and defied the law. On the waters, at the onset, these bold spirits, in their little whale-boats, waylaid vessels, and levied black-mail upon the cargo. Occasionally they hovered near some coast settlement, and dashed upon a solitary settler for supplies. They seemed the veritable descendants of the ancient sea-kings. But though the latter were honoured in their day as heroes, and are respected for their poetical exploits by our living men of song, the others earned a disreputable character, and were chased as piratical vagabonds.
Either the force of circumstances, or the development of latent honesty, led them to change their mode of life, and confine their operations to more legitimate pursuits. The growth of commerce converted them into producers. The love of roving, the restless energy, the dislike of restraint, the thirst for independence, and a sort of morbid passion for the wild solitudes of nature, were alike gratified in their selection of employment. The granite islands which form a kind of Giant's Causeway from Victoria to Tasmania, afforded them at once a home and a field of labour. In sheltered nooks they raised a cabin, enclosed a garden plot, obtained some goats, and sometimes had no other companion than man's own faithful friend—a dog. But they lacked the contemplative enjoyment of a Robinson Crusoe, and sought pleasure in the screaming of wild birds, the roar of billows, and great muscular exertion in the midst of danger. Armed with a
