...and outlying stations, thus leaving their home country to which they will mostly never return.
At the stations they were generally cared for, trained as stockmen or domestics and paid enough to keep their relatives. But the stations found that most of them went walkabout, often just when they were needed and that only a handfull were reliable. Those who got to the towns, like the Alice soon discovered alcohol and before long reached the metho stage, living in squalid dumps like Heavitree Gap and worked only to buy liquor. The women fell into the hands of the lowest type of white for money. It was also quite true that many better types of whites on stations, drovers and others took a lubra along as a matter of course.
His argument is that the mission forms a buffer between these myall blacks and the whites, which is certainly so. But it gives no explanation of his policy of sending black missionaries out to break down the tribal religions. He was a good man but, while he could criticise other sects, especially catholicism, he was an equally blind evangelist who saw everyone else as benighted. He knew not what he did.
I dismantled the meterological gear today and collected a few little things from the natives. The Finke Gorge party have not arrived back yet but will probably turn up in the morning. It will do Pro. Davies a bit of good to have to sleep in the sand a couple of nights. (end)
