and contact with a different and grasping race." He explains farther:—"This must not be understood to be a poetic or sentimental statement. It is a scientific consideration now, in explaining the diminution of any barbarous or inferior race in presence of a more powerful one—the effect on the spirits or temperament which the contrast of a different and more fortunate people causes." This is especially the truth in relation to the Tasmanians. The iron entered into the souls of these sensitive men. They sank under the burden of the thought.
Our Tasmanians suffered from heart sickness and home sickness. Mr. R H. Davis, in his interesting notice, refers to their residence on Flinders, "where," says he, "they have been treated with uniform kindness; nevertheless, the births have been few, and the deaths numerous. This may have been in a great measure owing to their change of living and food; but more so to their banishment from the mainland of Van Diemen's Land, which is visible from Flinders Island; and the Natives have often pointed it out to me with expressions of the deepest sorrow depicted on their countenances." Dr. Barnes was conscious of the same antagonism to his medical treatment, saying, "They pine away, not from any positive disease, but from a disease they call 'home sickness.' They die from a disease of the stomach, which comes on entirely from a desire to return to their own countRy." The Ranz des Vaches appeals to the imagination, and excites romantic impulses, though proceeding from the lips of voluntary exiles from their Swiss mountain-home. Can it be less affecting to witness the tear-dimmed glance of the Tasmanian at the hills from which he was stolen, or listen to the deep sigh of the dark captive as he dwells upon the forest haunts of his youth, and the loved ones of his days there? When the poor gin, with eager look and pointing finger, asked a gentleman if he saw the white, snowy crest of the towering Ben Lomond, then just looming in the distance, the tears rolled down her swarthy cheeks, as she exclaimed, "That-me-country." Perhaps Governor Bourke was justified in declaring, "They conceive that the God of the English is removing the aboriginal inhabitants to make room for them."
It was not to be expected that so mournful a fate could be a matter of indifference to statesmen, and we hear again and again expressions of sympathy from our British rulers. When
