Chapter 27

Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession, what
there is of it.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

FROM DIARY:

November 1--noon. A fine day, a brilliant sun. Warm in the sun, cold
in the shade--an icy breeze blowing out of the south. A solemn long
swell rolling up northward. It comes from the South Pole, with nothing
in the way to obstruct its march and tone its energy down. I have read
somewhere that an acute observer among the early explorers--Cook? or
Tasman?--accepted this majestic swell as trustworthy circumstantial
evidence that no important land lay to the southward, and so did not
waste time on a useless quest in that direction, but changed his course
and went searching elsewhere.

Afternoon. Passing between Tasmania (formerly Van Diemen's Land) and
neighboring islands--islands whence the poor exiled Tasmanian savages
used to gaze at their lost homeland and cry; and die of broken hearts.
How glad I am that all these native races are dead and gone, or nearly
so. The work was mercifully swift and horrible in some portions of
Australia. As far as Tasmania is concerned, the extermination was
complete: not a native is left. It was a strife of years, and decades of
years. The Whites and the Blacks hunted each other, ambushed each other,
butchered each other. The Blacks were not numerous. But they were wary,
alert, cunning, and they knew their country well. They lasted a long
time, few as they were, and inflicted much slaughter upon the Whites.

The Government wanted to save the Blacks from ultimate extermination, if
possible. One of its schemes was to capture them and coop them up, on a
neighboring island, under guard. Bodies of Whites volunteered for the
hunt, for the pay was good--L5 for each Black captured and delivered, but
the success achieved was not very satisfactory. The Black was naked, and
his body was greased. It was hard to get a grip on him that would hold.
The Whites moved about in armed bodies, and surprised little families of
natives, and did make captures; but it was suspected that in these
surprises half a dozen natives were killed to one caught--and that was
not what the Government desired.

Another scheme was to drive the natives into a corner of the island and
fence them in by a cordon of men placed in line across the country; but
the natives managed to slip through, constantly, and continue their
murders and arsons.

The governor warned these unlettered savages by printed proclamation that
they must stay in the desolate region officially appointed for them! The
proclamation was a dead letter; the savages could not read it. Afterward