The last
black child ever seen in the township was brought by its mother to
the hut of a white woman. It was naked and very dirty, and she laid
it down on the clay floor. The white woman's heart was moved with
pity at the sight of the miserable little bairn. She took it up,
washed it with warm water and soap, wrapped it in flannel, and gave
it back to the mother. But the lubra was loath to receive it. She
said, "Black picaninny all die. No good; white picaninny live."
The kangaroo, wombat, and dingo were fast dying out, as well a the
blackfellow. We could all see well enough how the change was brought
about. Millions of years ago, new species may have been evolved out
of the old species, but nothing of the kind happens now. The white
men of Australia were not evolved out of the black men. There are no
family ties, and never will be, between the kangaroo, the wombat and
wallaby, and their successors, the cattle, the sheep, and the goats.
We can kill species, but we can't create any.
The rabbit, destined to bring Nosey to the gallows, was a favoured
animal on Austin's station at the Barwon. It was a privilege to
shoot him--in small quantities--he was so precious. But he soon
became, as the grammar says, a noun of multitude. He swarmed on the
plains, hopped over the hills, burrowed among the rocks in the Rises,
and nursed his multitudinous progeny in every hollow log of the
forest.
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