one, I think, on the Wimmera, and one on the Murray. Long after a Moravian Mission was organised for their behoof at Lake Boga, near Swan Hill. All came to naught. The blacks visited them from time to time, when the season was unpropitious, or for other reasons. They were fed and clothed. The younger ones were taught to read and write, and received religious instruction. But the whole thing doubtless appeared to them unendurably dull and slow, and like all savages, and a largish proportion of whites, being passionately averse to monotony, they deserted by degrees, and pursued a more congenial career as wanderers through wood and wold, or as servants and labourers at the neighbouring stations. There they could earn money, and, I fear me, proceeded to "knock down" the same by means of periodic alcoholic indulgence, "as nat'ral as a white man."
Meanwhile good old Dr. Watton, a genial, cultured English gentleman, lived a peaceful patriarchal life at Mount Rouse—not, I should imagine, vexing his soul unduly at the instability of the heathen. They were welcomed and kindly treated when they came, not particularly regretted when they chose to depart. All attempt at coercion would have been, of course, inexpedient and ludicrously ineffective. So matters at the "Reservation" wore on. The doctor's small herd of cattle, the descendants of a few milch cows needed for the family, were wonderful to behold by reason of their obesity, as they lay and lounged about the spring which trickled down a plough-furrow in front of the cottage.
The pastoralists never approved of the protectorate
