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THE TASMANIANS AT THE COVE.
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him. And then he would talk to us, and pray with us. He would tell me what to read to him from the Bible, when too weak to hold the book himself. How he would talk to us! When he thought he was going to die, he got the room full, and bade us 'Good-bye.' He held up his hands and prayed for us. He did love us. And then he said, while he was crying, 'Mind you be sure and all meet me in heaven!'"

The poor creature could not tell me any more, but fairly sobbed aloud. I tried to comfort her, saying that God had kindly allowed him to go to his wife in heaven, and to the good Blacks who had died before him, and who would be so glad to see her there. If only Walter and she would keep his counsels, they might yet see him again. She shook her head, and mournfully, and yet with bitterness, replied, "No one cares for the Natives' souls now that Father Clark is gone."

And now she has gone, and Walter has gone, and the Blacks are all gone but an old woman. Father Clark had gone to his rest before such blighting sorrow came. It is good to read of such a man as he. It is a relief to the harshness and selfishness of life to know such a man as he. It would be a blessing to the world if more would live his life and die his death, even should clouds dim the horizon of hope.

I proceed now with a brief notice of the Natives on the station at my visit in 1859.

Old Sophia, then apparently over sixty years of age, had white hair, and the most monkey-like face I ever saw upon a human being. The projection of the lower jaw and the low cast of countenance denoted an inferior physique. She was born on Bruni Island, and had given birth to two children. A troop of mangy dogs accompanied their aged mistress, who held forth long harangues to the curs, that answered in snapping barks of recognition. Two of them lay in her wretched bed with her, to keep her back warm, as she told me.

Ragged Wapperty was not a desirable-looking old lady. Her country was near Patrick's Head, to the north-east. Her native name was known formerly as Woonoteah coota mena—"Thunder and lightning." There was nothing brilliant about her then. Her countrywoman Flora seemed about forty to forty-five years old. Her mouth was the most demonstrative part of her person. As I was being shown through the store by the Superintendent,