fatigue, or had been murdered by parental hands, as the Roman maiden of old, to prevent a supposed worse fate.
Dr. Story, in communicating with me, declares of the Line that it "struck them with such surprise, and displayed the powers that could be brought to bear against them, that G. A. Robinson had less difficulty in persuading them to accompany him where they would not be molested by the Whites, and have 'plenty damper, sugar, blanket.' When he landed on the north-east corner of the island, he with his tame Blacks followed the wild ones for some days before they would return with him to his boat. They had been terrified by the Line, saying it was 'pop, pop, pop, all pop.' 'If,' he said, 'you go there, you get killed. Come with me—you get plenty damper, I don't want you to come with me, but you get killed, if you go there.' And thus he worked upon them; some going with him, others following after a time."
The Hon. J. H. Wedge, when speaking of the Line, adds, "Notwithstanding the want of success attending the expedition, I am impressed with the belief that it had a considerable moral effect upon the minds of the Natives, and disposed them to lend a more willing ear to Mr. Robinson's propositions, when he succeeded in gaining an interview with them." Dr. Braim goes even further, and remarks of Mr. Robinson's success: "It was solely attributable to the formation of the Line; it showed the Aborigines our strength and our energy."
But however much credit we may give to the Line movement for the submission of this formidable tribe, no one will deny Mr. Robinson full credit for his final work. As Jorgenson observes: "They could form no notion that the Whites would be unable, for a great length of time, again to take the field; and thus they imagined that we should not cease till they were so harassed that either surrender or extermination must ensue, and they preferred the former, but not without great exertion and danger on the part of Mr. Robinson." Elsewhere he refers to him: "Nothing daunted this gentleman; conscious of his philanthropic views, conscious of the integrity of his intentions, he fearlessly advanced, extending his arms, and speedily convinced the Natives that they had nothing to fear from an unarmed party." Mr. Robinson's own way is curiously expressed in his letter of December 14th, 1830: "The grand object is in
