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Grants," I think, was the slang term she applied to them -1 asked her how long she had been
out herself? "Oh," she said, "I have been out six weeks, and I feel quite colonial already." I told
her I could well believe her. But the affectation and pretension of these people is to me very
extraordinary. To hear them talk, you would suppose they had held important social positions in
their fatherland, instead of which, three parts out of four have been driven out of it by hunger, or
by crime.
'18 June: I returned to the port almost blind with the dust. Walking out with the doctor in the
evening, I saw ever so many of our passengers drunk, some of whom had during the voyage
made many promises of amendment of life. Now I am quite sure that these men were sincere
when they made those promises, and if they were to renew them tomorrow I should believe
them sincere, although perfectly conscious that they would relapse at the first temptation... After
all, perhaps, evil may not be without its uses: the moral world would become flat, stagnant, and
inactive, if the acid of sin were not introduced into its composition to cause fermentation, and
subsequently purification. As in the political world, so in the moral world, fermentation is more
wholesome than stupid stagnation.
'20 June: Tomorrow is midwinter, and it is very hot. What must the summer be here! Went to
Adelaide in a Whitechapel cart as before. Saw a monument erected in memory of Col Light: it is
ugly enough. Walked over to Kensington to call upon the Bishop of Adelaide, who lives in a
charming cottage nestling in a flower garden. I had a cordial reception from this excellent
prelate, who combines the dignity of a high ecclesiastic with the simpiicity and good nature of an
English country gentleman.
'22 June: A very beautiful day again, cloudless and warm as an English August day. In geniality
the climate here far exceeds that of Italy in winter. There is no wind approaching to the piercing
Tramontana. But i understand that the heat here during the summer months is frightful. At that
period, during a hot wind, the thermometer will range from 100° to 120° in the house.
'Visited the schoo! of the aborigines, where I found 33 boys and 17 girls. I examined them
before the inspector and master, and they answered me correctly some simple scriptural
questions. I was shown their writing, and one of their copy-books was presented to me, which I
have now. The penmanship is capital. They sang one or two hymns very nicely, and if I had not
had before me their swarthy faces and restless, flashing eyes, I could have fancied myself in an
English parish school. But these Australian aborigines are a very unsatisfactory race of people.
They slip away from the grasp of civilisation in the most extraordinary manner; and as to
permanent religious impressions they are, as far as I can judge, incapable of them. With very
acute pereptive faculties, they are absolutely without reflective faculties, and it is next to
impossible tc create the simplest religious impressions in the breast of a being who can't think.
These people, too, are pure atheists; they do not even worship idols. But they have a childish
fear of some harming spirit, equivalent to what our children call Old Bogie, and of the influence
which the spirits of the dead may have over them. They believe, too, in magical powers. They
cling to their boundless plains and their forests with a tenacious animal instinct which nothing can
quench, neither good masters, good clothes, good food, nor the most excellent religious
instruction...'
On Sunday, 23 June, the Rev Mereweather read the litary and preached on board the Lady
McNaghten. In the afternoon he went ashore to see Jacob Kernot, who was very ill, and
bedded in the Commercial Hotel. Nothing more is mentioned about Jacob, whose sons had
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