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CHILDREN OF WILD AUSTRALIA

[Illustration: BOY SPEARING FISH]




CHILDREN OF WILD AUSTRALIA

BY

HERBERT PITTS

AUTHOR OF
"THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH"

[Illustration: Decoration]

WITH EIGHT COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON
OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER


PRINTED BY
TURNBULL AND SPEARS,
EDINBURGH


                   TO
            DEAR LITTLE MARY
            THIS LITTLE BOOK
                 ABOUT
     THE LITTLE BLACK BOYS AND GIRLS
           OF A FAR-OFF LAND
            IS DEDICATED BY
              HER FATHER




MY DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS,

All the time I have been writing this little book I have been wishing I
could gather you all around me and take you with me to some of the
places in faraway Australia where I myself have seen the little black
children at their play. You would understand so much better all I have
tried to say.

It is a bright sunny land where those children live, but in many ways a
far less pleasant land to live in than our own. The country often grows
very parched and bare, the grass dies, the rivers begin to dry up, and
the poor little children of the wilderness have great difficulty in
getting food. Then perhaps a great storm comes and a great quantity of
rain falls. The rivers fill up and the grass begins to grow again, but
myriads of flies follow and they get into the children's eyes and
perhaps blind some of them, and the mosquitoes come and