Item 03: 'The Aborigines of Australia. A Lecture by Wm. Ridley M.A.', 14 September 1864. - Page 12

The sources of information concerning the  

Australian race are the journals of explorers, from

Captain Cook to Burke and Wills, - the conversation

of settlers and their servants who have been for years

in constant communication with the blacks, the  

records of the few missionaries who have gone

among them and heard their traditions, and the

details supplied by men who through shipwreck

or some parallel misfortune have been compelled

to spend years among the savage tribes.   From

these various sources some data may be

derived to form the basis of reasonable

conjecture respecting the past history of this

race,- enough to warrant the assurance that  

in the comprehensive history of the world which

worthy [successors?] of Sir Walter Raleigh, and

[Rolin ?] will write in the 20th Century, the thousands

of years of the course of events in Australia

before 1788 will not be absolutely blank.

Some certainties and some conjectures