Page:The aborigines of Australia.djvu/128

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
BINNELONG IN ENGLAND.
115

a mere "blackfellow," exchange compliments with him and his companions, and, finally, as the last act of condescension, invite the aboriginal band to partake of his cheer and eat with him at the same meal.

On the appointed day Binnelong presented himself before the Governor, dressed in a suit of clothes which had been forwarded to him at his own request in order that he might present a decent and becoming appearance when he again joined the company of his old friends. An apartment was allotted to him in the Governor's residence; every attention was bestowed on his comfort and convenience, and he did not again quit the colony till he accompanied Governor Phillip to Europe. Of his career in England but little has been ascertained. Whether he was carried before the King and royal family by his protector, whether he was visited by lords and ladies, whether he was run after and cheered by the populace, whether, in fine, he was regarded as a prodigy and a hero, inasmuch as he was the first aboriginal inhabitant of the antipodes who visited England, no evidence exists to enable us to say or gainsay. Certain it is, however, that amid the wonders of civilization by which he was surrounded, amid the glare of the most gorgeous creations of art and science, and in the possession of all the comforts and luxuries which the capital of Great Britain could afford, he sighed for the sunny clime of his youth, and anxiously looked forward to the time when the