That private individuals have done the bulk of the detail work there is
no denying; but that work, although every whit as useful to the community
as the more brilliant exploits that carried with them the publicity of
Government patronage, has not found the same careful preservation.
To find the material to write such a history would necessitate the work
of a lifetime, and the co-operation of hundreds of old colonists; and,
when written, it would inevitably, from the nature of the subject, prove
most monotonous reading, and fill, I am afraid to think, how many
volumes. The reader has but to consider the immense area of country now
under pastoral occupation, and to remember that each countless
subordinate river and tributary creek was the result of some extended
research of the pioneer squatter, to realise this.
Since the hope of finding an inland sea, or main central range, vanished
for ever, the explorer cannot hope to discover anything much more
exciting or interesting than country fitted for human habitation. The
attributes of the native tribes are very similar throughout. Since the
day when Captain Phillip and his little band settled down here and tried
to gain the friendship of the aboriginal, no startling difference has
been found in him throughout the continent.
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