interior of New South Wales, near the Peel and Mur- rumbidgu, which abound in excellent fish, the natives attain a greater size and strength than where their diet consists merely of opossums, grubs, and reptiles. In dolence and aversion to labour, or regular occupation of any kind, is the principal moral characteristic of these people. In nothing is this more apparent than in their nightly lairs or bivouacs. A few branches of the casuarina, so disposed as to shelter them in the direction of the wind, constitute their only dwelling; against cold and rain they do not attempt to guard themselves. Hence the mortality among their children, and the fewness of their numbers. It is probable that all the natives within the compass of a hundred miles from Adelaide do not exceed, in number, seven hundred. When pressed by hunger, or desirous of the luxury of a little sugar or biscuit, they will fetch wood and water to the settler’s door, moving with a slow and sauntering gait, and probably lamenting that sugar and biscuit cannot be obtained without working. With all this, they display a remarkable aptitude for acquiring the English language, and they have learnt to wear gar ments, and to use lucifer matches, as a less fatiguing means of obtaining fire than their own process of causing the ignition of dry wood by means of friction. The eyesight of these people, sharpened by habitual searching for food, has acquired a keenness from which nothing can escape. Over dry and grassy plains, where the European eye could detect no evidence of the presence of man, they have traced the footsteps of the bush-ranger for days on days; and in New South Wales, their assistance, as agents of the rural and border police, is deemed indis-