WILD WHITES.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 285, 5 June 1909, Page 7

WILD WHITES.

The wild white men of the vast "Never Never Land" of Northern Australia,' '■ to whom- the Rev. T. Major is conducting a mission, are known as; "white blackfellows," an expression that, while involving a certain contradiction in terms, nevertheless fits them to a 'aicety. — Fugitives from Justice.— . Some of these voluntary outcasts from their kind arft present-day fugitives from justice. Others are the descendants of ■run-away convicts who "took to the bush" in the bad old days of transportation. They live amongst -the aborigines, aping their manners and customs, and subsisting on the same always scanty and frequently loathsome food. According to iflr Major, they are exceedingly shy and difficult to approach, fleeing at the first sign of a "tame" white man. The mere idea of individuals of our race and colour sinking to this low level is revolting. Yet the Australian white blackfellow has his counterpartjn other quarters of the globe, notably in the Guiana hinterland, Avhere whole colonies of white savages are known to be interspersed amongst the bush .negroes, than whom no more degraded race exists anywhere on •earth. >. Like the wild men of the Never Never Land, . too, these unhappy people are descended from runaway convicts, mostly French. — rOrigin Puzzles Scientists.- — Then, agaiiij there are the small isolated communities of 'white Indians, so called, which recent research has revealed living at various points near the head-waters' of the Amazon. Ethnologists have been completely puzzled as to their origin. They possess the Caucasian features, and in the' dialects they speak can be traced many more or less archaic Spanish words and phrases. This has led to the theory being broached that they are the descendants of some of the followers of Orellana, the discoverer of the Amazon, so mo hundreds of whom are known to. have deserted their leader .and 'wandered aside into, the pathless forests. -during the' first stage of his nrdmms and ever-memorable journey.