YORKE'S PENINSULA. [communicated.] November 10 th. 1850.
A packet of intelligence from a corner of the colony so little known and frequented as this, will be to you and your readers an object of novelty, if not of interest. Where accidents and important occurrences are so scarce, your correspondent must needs draw largely upon his imagination for matter to entertain those who may glance at his communication. The state of the crops is a subject upon which he might dilate— if there were any. But the soil of the peninsula is as yet untouched by the ploughshare. The progress of scab amongst the sheep, though a matter of importance to parties engaged with stock, is too delicate and dirty an affair to fill the columns of a broad sheet. The natives too at the present moment are so peaceable that we have not even the robbery of a single sheep or a bit of damper to report; and this quiet, we have good grounds for hoping will be permanent, the ringleader in the two fatal affrays of last year having died a few days ago. You will recollect, perhaps, the apprehension of Yalta, who was implicated in the murders of Armstrong and Scott, and was at length set at liberty from lack of sufficient evidence. This wretch's death (from some natural cause) has rid the population here of all fears of future mischief. While on this subject I cannot but advert to a point which seems to me worthy the attention of the well-paid Protector of the Aborigines. The unhappy native females being now brought more frequently into contact with the whites, have experienced the usual results of such intercourse. Would it be impolitic to entrust tbe police stationed here, with some simple medicines for the benefit of these unfortunate creatures ? Or can no step be taken to prevent the spread of a disease, which must inevitably sweep away the whole of the native population ?
The winter here, as elsewhere, has been unusually dry, and stock in the peninsula must suffer severely this summer from the scarcity of pasture ; the sod being generally a thin coating of a few inches in depth, on a stratum of limestone, which dries in a few days. The weather has been very favourable for shearing, which a few days more will bring to a close.
J. M.