'A thousand years, eh?' Lyell pursued. Sir George let him go
on for a while, then broke in, 'If that's a thousand years old, I
likewise am a thousand years old, because one has been taken out of me.'
'What do you mean?' was Lyell's ejaculation. 'Oh,' said Sir George, 'a
head almost similar was on the spear which an Australian native drove
into my thigh.'
Whereupon laughter, and tale of the fight.
VI MAN AND NATURE ABORIGINAL
There never had been such a drama in that forest of North-West Australia.
The noise of the white man's war fell upon the primeval silence, breaking
it.
This battle dwelt acutely with Sir George Grey as the single occasion,
amid all his adventures, on which he had been the instrument of taking
human life. He carried his own wounds to the grave, but only sorrowed for
the bullet he sped, though sheer necessity drove it. The sacred light
might burn in a savage, ignorant of its nobler gleams, yet it was the
gift of the Creator. Moreover, Sir George's whole dealing, towards native
races, was guided by a pole-star principle. The duty civilisation owed
them, he affirmed, was the larger in proportion to their state of
darkness. He held this to be the simple rule for the Christian.
The natives of the Australian North-West were a fine race physically,
and, he judged, had an ingrain of Malay blood.
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