the Natives, and added, "The miserable races composing the Native tribes of this continent will soon melt away."
The Tasmanians suffered less from strong drink than the Australians have done, because they were less social with the Whites, and preferred dwelling apart in the independence of the wilderness. But every case I have examined into of, so-called, partial civilization has been one of misery from that cause. Whalers, stock-keepers, and sealers employed that agency for the accomplishment of their purpose with the Black women. The "Tame Mob" that hung about Hobart Town in early times, were dissolute and drunken. The unhappy remnant at Oyster Cove deplored their exposure to that curse; and, while declaring their passion for the excitement, spoke feelingly of the cruelty of subjecting them to its temptation.
No story can be sadder, as illustrating both civilization and decline, than that told me at Oyster Cove by the Superintendent concerning a beautiful Tasmanian girl, who had been adopted by Lady Franklin, and afterwards thrown into the herd of degraded savages. She had dwelt in the Colonial palace, had been taught, petted, and trained to higher hopes. She was then left to grope her way to the grave along with the untutored of her own race, the ignorant and vicious of ours. But a friend has sent me his own sketch of the girl. It appeared in the Hobart Town Mercury last June. He describes a visit of Lady Franklin's to the Blacks' temporary station, where was a pretty baby.
"As there were no picaninnies," says he, "at Government House at that time, it was in some way arranged that an addition should be made to the family at home; and so it was ordered that the little wild girl should take her place as one of the family. The king's daughter carried no dowry with her, save, indeed, a single kangaroo-skin, a rush basket, a shell necklace or two, a pet opossum, and her name—that was Mathinna. This pretty sound means in the language of her fathers 'Beautiful Valley.' She grew to be a tall, graceful girl—and here I am at a loss to describe perhaps one of the grandest specimens of our kind that ever nature smiled upon. She stood, when I saw her last, about five feet eight inches high, was very erect, with a quick, thoughtless, or perhaps thinking, if you please, toss about her head now and then. Her hair still curled short as before, but seemed to struggle into length, and was blacker
