the ground with their mangy dogs, smoking their filthy pipes, and cackling over stories of their past.
So was it with Jemmy Button of Terra del Fuego. In 1830, at the age of fifteen, he was bought for a button from his father, and brought to England by Captain Fitzroy. There he was petted and schooled Great were the expectations of his usefulness among his benighted countrymen. Married to a girl that had, also, been educated, and who spoke English and Portuguese well, he was sent off with quite a cargo of good things, even to toilet services. A garden was made and stocked, and the Dandy Jemmy was left with his treasures. A year after Captain Fitzroy returned. The garden was destroyed, the treasures were scattered, and Jemmy was all but naked, with matted, filthy hair. Captain Snow saw him in 1855, "a wild, naked, and shaggy-looking savage." "The man of many hopes," wrote Mr. Snow, "of much talk, and of great name in getting an interest in the mission (while it brought large sums to the account), yet none the less a nude savage like his brethren." He adds, "yet that same poor creature had been the petted idol of his friends here and at home, had been presented to royalty, and finally sent back to Fuego as a passably finished man."
Mr. Dandridge, who is at present in charge of the one Tasmanian woman alive, gave me some intelligence of Mathinna, a girl of singular beauty and mental capacity for an Aborigine. Attracting the notice of the benevolent and literary Lady Franklin, the child was removed to Government House, and carefully and kindly trained by her ladyship. Mathinna pursued her studies with diligence, and became almost accomplished. Her good looks suffered no deterioration by her change of life, but were refined by education and developed by art. The age of early womanhood found her attractive in mind and body. But for whom were these charms to bud? On whom could she bestow her affections, and preserve her virtue? Could she, who had been indulged in the drawing-room of the Governor, who had become used to the luxuries of civilization, be content to be the bride of ever so handsome a Black? Dare she hope to be the mate of an Englishman whose tastes and education were equal to her own. Her moral danger had been foreseen by her kind friends, and many a lecture had she received upon duty. Ladies had warned, and ministers had preached. But the wild
