And now having brought the Spanish missionaries to that point when they could "eat the labour of their hands," I must close a sketch which might have been embellished by other extracts, and additional anecdotes, had I not feared to violate the rights of authors and the laws of courtesy. I have simply tried to give the salient points of the narrative, especially those which relate to the natural disposition of the natives and their capacity for improvement.
The chief obstacles to success at New Norcia have arisen, as may easily be imagined, at the first, from the character of many of the shepherds and servants of the settlers in the earlier time of the Mission, and latterly, from the conversion of the colony into a penal settlement. The Fathers have found themselves compelled to maintain an isolated position by extending their purchases of land, and thus drawing, so to speak, a cordon sanitaire around their converts. Even if Western Australia had never been made a penal colony, the success of the Mission would probably have owed much to such restrictions on its admixture with white society. Children and young plants thrive best in nurseries, and I do not believe that under any circumstances a wild race can be educated with justice to itself on the open ground of civilization. The intermarriage of the converts, and the settling of the young couples upon a tract belonging to the monastery, has been one most important result of the position which the Benedictines occupy as members of a large landed institution.
So many marriages between girls just past childhood and men of middle age take place among the wild natives, that the better assorted matches of New Norcia are not
