Like the other Australian tribes, those of Port Essington are frequently at feud with their neighbours, and quarrels sometimes last for years, or, if settled, are apt to break out afresh.  In these cases the lex talionis is the only recognised one.  I may give an example.

ACCOUNT OF NEINMAL, AN ABORIGINAL OF PORT ESSINGTON.

A Monobar native (inhabitant of the country to the westward of the isthmus) was shot by a marine in the execution of his duty, for attempting to escape while in custody, charged with robbery.  When his tribe heard of it, as they could not lay their hands upon a white man, they enticed into their territory a Bijenelumbo man, called Neinmal, who was a friend of the whites, having lived with them for years, and on that account he was selected as a victim and killed.  When the news of Neinmal’s death reached the settlement, some other Bijenelumbo people took revenge by killing a Monobar native within a few hundred yards of the houses.  Thus the matter rests at present, but more deaths will probably follow before the feud is ended.  Both these murders were committed under circumstances of the utmost atrocity, the victims being surprised asleep unconscious of danger and perfectly defenceless, then aroused to find themselves treacherously attacked by numbers, who, after spearing them in many places, fearfully mangled the bodies with clubs.

In some of the settled districts of Australia missionaries have been established for many years back, still it must be confessed that the results of their labours are far from being encouraging.  Indeed no less an authority than Mr. Eyre, writing in 1848, unhesitatingly states as follows:  “Nor is it in my recollection,” says he, “that throughout the whole length and breadth of New Holland, a single real and permanent convert to Christianity has yet been made amongst them."* From what I myself have seen or heard, in the colony of New South Wales, I have reason to believe the missionary efforts there, while proving a complete failure so far as regards the Christianising of the blacks, have yet been productive of much good in rendering them less dangerous and more useful to their white neighbours, without however permanently reclaiming more than a few from their former wandering and savage mode of life, and enabling them and their families to live contentedly on the produce of their own labour.  I am not one of those who consider that the Australian is not susceptible of anything like such permanent improvement as may be termed civilisation, although it appears to have been sufficiently proved that his intellectual capacity is of a very low order.

(Footnote.  Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia etc. by E.J.  Eyre volume 2 page 420.)