observation, as well as from facts collected by others, I feel confident
that there are many distinct dialects spoken in Australia.

DIALECTS OF AUSTRALIA.

It is easy enough for those who hold to the theory that Australia
produces few dialects, to create for themselves a resemblance in words by
mutilation and addition; but on careful examination, the similarity will
not be found to exist. The natives we took from Swan River, never could
understand any of those we met on the North-west coast, though certainly
Mr. Moore recognized a few words spoken by the natives on the West coast,
about 200 miles north of Swan River, as being identical with the language
used at the latter place.

It may here be as well to quote Strzelecki on this subject, ere we pursue
our narrative:

"The circumstance of the three natives who accompanied Captain Flinders
and Captain P.P. King, in the survey of New Holland, and of those who
accompanied me amongst the different tribes of New South Wales, being
unable to understand one word spoken by tribes of other districts, would
lead to the belief that the dialects spoken in New Holland, are far from
possessing those affinities, still less those identities of language,
from which a common root might be inferred. Those European visitors or
explorers who adduce, in support of a common root, some hundred words
analogous in sound, construction and meaning, as being spoken all over
New Holland, have jumped to the conclusion with, I fear, too much haste
and eagerness. Besides many other insuperable difficulties, which an
investigation of such a nature presents, there was one quite sufficient
to defeat all attempts to fathom the subject, namely, the syntactic