Note 232 — Chapter XIII · To Carson Valley.
Reading edition
Van Diemen’s Land, in the days of Captain Flinders (A.D. 1800, two generations ago), had a population of 100,000 souls, now well-nigh annihilated by strong waters and corrosive sublimate. Neither man nor woman was safe in the vicinity of a native tribe; the Anglo-Scandinavian race thus found it necessary to wipe out a people that could not be civilized—a fair instance of the natural selection of species. And New Zealand now threatens to walk the path of Tasmania.