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[Page 18]
16
tobacco as a reward. When searching for cedar
in the dense brushes of the Richmond we always took a
blackfellow with us his bushcraft and keen vision
enabling him to find the valuable trees much more
quickly than we ourselves could.
Though no doubt, in the early pioneering days the blacks did
sometimes rob and murder, by the seventies they had
become quite as amenable to law and order as the
average whites infact, I think, rather more so.
Be that as it may, both at Bell^evue and at Bentley we found
them honest and harmless though they had plenty of
opportunities to thieve if they wished to do so for in our
houses and outbuildings we had no locks or bolts and
tools or other articles left in the bush, or in our camps,
were never interfered with by the blacks and were
as safe as if they were under our own eyes.
Their most objectionable characteristic was want of personal
cleanliness and the odour of their unwashed bodies
was certainly unpleasant. But, are there not also many
of the superior white race by no means immaculate
in regard to personal cleanliness?
The blacks were a laughter loving people with a keen
sense of humour and quick to pick up and enjoy
a joke and, on the whole, were kind to their