Some recollections and records of the Clarence and Richmond River Aborigines, compiled by Robert Leycester Dawson, September 1935 - Page 17

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for after starting a job enthuastically they often got tired

of it and wanted to "go walk about" and have a little

relaxation before finishing it off. This cannot be wondered

at for after being warriors and hunters for countless  

generations they could hardly be expected, within a few decades,

to equal the bred-to-labour Anglo Saxon.

Physically they were muscular, sinewy, and of athletic build

but rarely over the middle height, a sixfoot man being an

exception and I only remember two or three, including King

Billy of Yulgibar who was over that height and of magnificent

build and physique. Their noses were depressed at the base

and spread at the nostrils, though Gentleman John was

an exception. He was an old man of courteous and gentle

demeanour and had in his youth been partly crippled by a fall

from a tree. His nose was aqualine and his skin

copper coloured suggesting the possibility that he may have

had foreign blood in his veins, perhaps derived from the

occupant of  a  ^some  castaway canoe wind driven across from

some Pacific island. He belonged to the Casino-Lismore

tribe and he and King Billy were the only aboriginals I

knew who would not touch alchoholic liquor.

The keen eyesight of the blacks is common knowledge and  

we found that almost any accidentally lost article or animal

could speedily be recovered by the promise of a fig of