with a yellow pigment, which was the colour of the neighbouring cliff; their hair was long and curly, and appeared to be clotted with a whitish paint. During the time of our parley the natives had their spears close at hand, for those who were in the water had them floating near them, and those who were on the beach had them either buried in the sand, or carried them between their toes, in order to deceive us and to appear unarmed; and in this they succeeded, until one of them was detected, when we were pulling towards the woman, by his stooping down and picking up his spear.

Finding that we had no chance of recovering our loss, we returned on board, when the natives also withdrew from the beach, and did not afterwards show themselves.

Savages are generally thieves, but the New Hollander by nature far outshines all that art has done for the sojourner at Botany Bay. The first thing a native does is to attempt to get behind high grass or a bush, and spear you with his boomerang; if he fails, he puts his spear between his toes, and trails it along the ground, to escape observation, then comes forward, and commences by asking in detail for every thing he sees; being, of course, disappointed, he gets furious; tries to use his spear; is terrified by the sight of a musket; civilizes ; thrusts his hands into all your pockets, and ends with going off with your hat or hatchet under his arm.

At daylight the following morning I was much surprised by being told that five canoes were paddling off to the cutter, four of which only held each one native, but the fifth, being rather larger, contained two.

On approaching the cutter they laid off until invited to come alongside; when they approached without the least alarm or hesitation, and made signs for something to eat; some biscuit was given to them, which they ate, and, unlike all other Australian savages, appeared to relish its taste. Some little persuasion was necessary to induce them to venture on board; but as soon as one mounted the ladder the others followed. Their astonishment was considerably excited at every thing that they saw, particularly at our poultry and live stock. Fishing hooks and lines were gladly received by them; and, in return, they gave us their baskets and turtle pegs; they remained with us for half an hour; upon leaving the vessel, they pointed out their huts, and invited us, by signs, to return their visit.

As soon as they had left us, Mr. Bedwell and Mr. Cunningham went to the islet off the west end of Goold Island, and on their way met two other canoes, containing three men, coming to the cutter from another part of the bay; after a short communication with our party they paid us the intended visit, and were soon induced to come on board, where they remained for half an hour, without betraying the least fear or anxiety for their safety before they took their leave we had clothed them with some damaged slops; and, in order to give each something, the feet of a pair of worsted stockings were cut off to make socks for one, whilst the legs were placed on another's arms; a leathern cap was given to each of them, and thus accoutred, and making a most ridiculous appearance, they left us, highly delighted with themselves and with the reception they had met with.

As soon as they reached a little distance they began to divest themselves of their attire, and we had much amusement in witnessing the difficulty under which the wearer of a shirt laboured to get it off.

Their canoes were not more than five feet long, and generally too small for two people; two small strips of bark, five or six inches square, serves the double purpose of paddling and for baling the water out, which they are constantly obliged to do to prevent their canoe from sinking; in shoal water the paddles are superseded by a pole, by which this fragile bark is propelled. We endeavoured to persuade them to bring off some spears to barter, for they had no weapon of any description with them, but they evidently would not understand our meaning. In the evening our gentlemen proceeded to return these visits, at the spot which was pointed out by our morning guests: on landing they were met by the natives and conducted to their huts, where they saw the whole of the male part of this tribe, which consisted of fifteen, of whom two were old and decrepit, and one of these was reduced to a perfect skeleton by ulcerated sores on his legs, that had eaten away the flesh, and left large portions of the bone bare; and this miserable object was wasting away without any application or covering to his sores.

No teeth were deficient in their jaws; all had the septum-narium perforated, but without wearing any appendage in it. The only ornament they appeared to possess, was a bracelet of plaited hair, won round the upper arm. An open wicker basket, neatly and even tastefully made of strips of the flagellaria indica, was obtained from one of them by Mr. Roe, in which they carry their food and fishing lines; besides which, each native has his gourd, the fruit of the cucurbita lagenaria, which grows plentifully on all parts of the beach, and furnishes a very useful vessel to these simple savages, for the purpose of carrying water.

The next interview with the natives is marked by a curious incident, the effect of a looking-glass upon these savages.

us.

In order to divert them, and obtain as much information as we could, whilst the boat's crew were filling the water-casks, we seated ourselves on the grass, and commenced a conversation that was perfectly unintelligible to each other, accompanied with the most ridiculous gestures, a species of buffoonery that is always acceptable to the natives of this part of the world, and on more than one occasion has been particularly useful to An attempt was made to procure a vocabulary of their language, but without success, for we were soon obliged, from their impatience, to give it up. Not so easily, however, were they diverted from their object, for every article of our dress, and every thing we carried, they asked for with the greatest importunity; our refusal disappointed them so much, that they could not avoid showing the hostile feelings they had evidently begun to entertain towards us. Seeing this, I took an opportunity of convincing them of our power; and, after some difficulty, persuaded the native that carried the spear, to throw it at a paper-mark, placed against a bush, at the distance of twelve yards. He launched it twice, but, much to his mortification, without striking the object. Mr. Hunter then fired, and perforated the paper with shot, which increased the shame that the native and his companions evidently felt upon the occasion: Mr. Hunter then killed a small bird that was skipping about the branches of an overhanging tree; upon the bird being given to them, they impatiently and angrily examined it all over, and particularly scrutinized the wound that caused its death.

We now found that the proved superiority of our weapons, instead of quieting them, only served to inflame their anger the more; and we were evidently on the point of an open rupture. One of them seized the theodolite-stand, which I carried in my hand, and I was obliged to use force to retain it. They then made signs to Mr. Hunter to send his gun to the boat; this was of course refused, upon which one of them seized it, and it was only by wrenching it from his grasp, that Mr. Hunter repossessed himself of it.

Many little toys were now given to them, on receiving which, their countenances relaxed into a smile; and peace would perhaps have been restored, had we not unfortunately presented them with a looking-glass, in which they were, for the first time, witnesses of their hideous countenances, which were rendered still more savage from the ill-humour they were in. They now became openly angry; and, in very unequivocal terms, ordered us away. Fortunately, the Indian that carried the spear was the least ill-tempered of the party, or we should not perhaps have retreated without being under the necessity of firing in self-defence.

We retired, however, without any further rupture, and left them seated on the bank, whence they continued to watch our movements until the boat was loaded and we left the shore. They then came down to the beach, and searched about for whatever things we might accidentally have left behind; and, after examining with great attention some marks that, for amusement, some of our party had scratched upon the sand, they separated. The old man and the two boys embarked in a canoe, and paddled round the point towards the Cape, in which direction also the other two natives bent their steps.

The tall, slender form of the Port Jackson natives, and their other peculiarities of long curly hair, large heads, and spare limbs, are equally developed in the inhabitants of this part. The bodies of these people are, however, considerably more scarified than their countrymen to the southward, and their teeth are perfect. One of our visitors had a fillet of plaited grass, whitened by pigment, bound round his head, and this was the only ornament worn by them.

The spear was of very rude form, and seemed to be a branch of the mangrove-tree made straight by the effect of fire: it did not appear that they used the throwingstick.

Again the natives show their evil temper―the following is an account of an affair with them.

:

On the following day, when our people resumed their occupation, they were again cautioned not to trust to the apparent absence of the natives. In the afternoon Mr. Roe walked along the beach with his gun in quest of birds on his way he met Mr. Hunter returning from a walk, in which he had encountered no recent signs of the Indians. This information emboldened Mr. Roe to wander farther than was prudent, and in the mean time Mr. Hunter returned to our party in order to go on board; he had, however, scarcely reached our station when the report of a musket and Mr. Roe's distant shouting were heard. The people immediately seized their arms and hastened to his relief, and by this prompt conduct probably saved his life.

It appeared that, after parting from Mr. Hunter, he left the beach and pursued his walk among the trees; he had not proceeded more than fifty yards when he fired at a bird he was cautious enough to reload before he moved from the spot in search of his game, but this was scarcely done before a boomerang whizzed past his head, and struck a tree close by with great force. Upon looking round towards the verge of the cliff, which was about twenty yards off, he saw several natives; who, upon finding they were discovered, set up a loud and savage yell, and threw another boomerang and several spears at him, all of which providentially missed. Emboldened by their numbers and by his apparent defenceless situation, they were following up the attack by a nearer approach, when he fired amongst them, and, for a moment, stopped their advance. Mr. Roe's next care was to reload, but to his extreme mortification and dismay he found his cartouch box had turned round in the belt, and every cartridge had dropped out being thus deprived of his ammunition, and having no other resource left but to make his escape, he turned round, and ran towards the beach; at the same time shouting loudly, to apprize our people of his danger. He was now pursued by three of the natives, whilst the rest ran along the cliff to cut off his retreat.

On his reaching the edge of the water, he found the sand so soft that at every step his feet sunk three or four inches, which so distressed him and impeded his progress, that he must soon have fallen overpowered with fatigue, had not the sudden appearance of our people, at the same time that it inspired him with fresh hopes of escape, arrested the progress of the natives, who, after throwing two or three spears without effect, stopped, and gave him time to join our party, quite spent with the extraordinary effort he had made to save his life.

Whilst this event occurred, I was employed on board in constructing my rough chart; but upon Mr. Roe's being seen from the deck in the act of running along the beach pursued by the Indians, I hastened on shore, determined, if possible, to punish them for such unprovoked hostility. Upon landing, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Roe, and one of the men joined me in pursuit of the natives; but, from our comparatively slow movements, and our ignorance of the country, we returned after an hour without having seen any signs of them; in the evening, before our people left off work, we made another circuitous walk, but with the same bad success. The natives had taken the alarm, and nothing more was seen of them during the remainder of our stay, excepting the smoke of their fires, which appeared over the trees at the back of the island.

These extraordinary beings appear to know something of the nature of British sailors, by the singular species of decoy which on one occasion they used.

Among the natives was a young woman, whom they repeatedly offered us by using the most significant signs; which she also endeavoured to strengthen by appropriate gestures on her part; but our inclinations were not consonant with the opportunity so pressingly, but so suspiciously, offered. After our declining this honour, they occasionally laid their hands upon our clothes to detain us, but it did not require much force to make them quit their hold. One of the men having seized my gun, I drew it out of his hand rather roughly; but, accompanied at the same moment with the friendly gesture of patting his breast, the recovery was happily effected without exciting his anger.

In another attempt at communication, the surgeon who joined Captain King in his fourth voyage, was wounded in the back severely; however, they do not seem to be good marksmen-not better than our

men with the muskets, who proved themselves such bad shots, that Captain King on one occasion absolutely regrets ("except for the sake of humanity") that he had not killed one of them for the honour of our arms-(see vol. ii. p. 24.) The savages had began to think that the discharge of a musket laden with balls was attended by nothing but a very big noise.

While our people were employed the next morning in washing the decks, they heard at a distance the voices of natives; at eight o'clock they were again heard, and at ten o'clock they were close by: shortly afterwards three, of whom one was a woman, were seen standing on the rocks waving their arms. Being curious to communicate with the inhabitants of this part of the coast, since we had not seen any between this and Vansittart Bay, a party, consisting of the surgeon, Mr. Bedwell, Mr. Baskerville, and myself, went on shore to the place where the natives were seated waiting for us. Bundell, who generally accompanied us on these occasions divested of his clothes, stood up in the bow of the boat, and, as we approached the shore, made signs of friendship, which the natives returned, and appeared quite unconcerned at our approach. On landing, we climbed the rocks on which the two men were standing, when we found that the woman had walked away: upon our approach, they retired a few paces, and evidently eyed us in a distrustful manner; but, as they had dropped their spears, and repeated the sign of peace that we had made to them, we did not hesitate to walk towards them unarmed, desiring the boat's crew to be prepared with the muskets, if called. When we joined them they had their spears poised ready to throw, but on our presenting them with some of the fish that we had caught the preceding evening, they dropped their spears, and immediately returned us something in exchange; one gave a belt, made of oppossum fur, to Bundell; and the other, the tallest of the two, gave me a club that he carried in his hand, a short stick about eighteen inches long, pointed at both ends. This exchange of presents appeared to establish a mutual confidence between us, and, to strengthen it, I presented my friend with a clasped knife, after showing him its use, the possession of which appeared to give him great pleasure. By this time Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Bedwell joined us; the latter gentleman was unarmed, but the former had a pistol concealed under his coat, and carried a fish, which he held out for them to take; but, as they would not approach us nearer than two or three yards, he threw it towards them, when the shortest native picked it up. Upon this accession to our numbers, they began to talk to each other, and, at the same time, picked up their spears; but, as the latter appeared only to be a cautionary movement, we did not anticipate their mischievous intentions. I then, with a view to amuse them, made signs to my friend for the knife, which he put into my hands without showing the least reluctance, upon which he was again instructed how to open and shut it; but as this, instead of pacifying, only served to increase their anger, the knife was thrown at his feet, which he instantly picked up, and then both retired a few paces in a very suspicious manner.

We were at this time about three or four yards from the natives, who were talking to each other in a most animated way, and evidently intent upon some object; and, as it appeared probable that, if we remained any longer, a rupture would ensue, it was proposed that our party should retire to the boat, under the idea that they would follow us down; no sooner, however, had we waved to them our farewell, and turned our backs to descend the rocks, than they unexpectedly, and in the most treacherous manner, threw their spears; one of which, striking a rock, broke and fell harmless to the ground, but the other, which was thrown by the tallest man, wounded Mr. Montgomery in the back; the natives then, without waiting to throw their second spears, made off, closely pursued by Bundell, who had armed himself with the broken spear; but they were out of sight in a moment, and, by the time that the muskets were brought to our assistance, were doubtless out of gun-shot. A pursuit was, however, commenced, but our progress was so much impeded by the rugged and rocky nature of the ground, and by the abundance and intricate growth of the shrubs and trees, that we very soon desisted, and returned to the boat, to which Mr. Montgomery had been in the mean time carried, complaining of great weakness from loss of blood.

Upon examining Mr. Montgomery's wound, which unfortunately was in such a part of his body that he could not himself inspect it, it appeared that the spear had penetrated about three inches; and, from the quantity of extravasated blood, great fears were entertained that he had received a very serious internal injury. The wound, MARCH, 1827. 2 C

from which he was suffering very great pain, was dressed according to his instructions, but it was several days before he considered himself out of danger.

A successful attempt was made to establish a friendly intercourse with the savages about Oyster Bay, in King George's Sound; and, in one instance, an individual was found who seemed to be capable of something like attachment. The sailors actually established a friendship with a gentleman, whom they endued with ancient trowsers, shaved, and christened "Jack." This is the solitary piece of humanity found by Captain King in four long voyages, lasting from the year 1817 to 1822.

On returning on board, we desired the native who had remained behind to go ashore to his companions, but it was with great reluctance that he was persuaded to leave us. Whilst on board, our people had fed him plentifully with biscuit, yams, pudding, tea, and grog, of which he ate and drank as if he was half famished; and after being crammed with this strange mixture, and very patiently submitting his beard to the operation of shaving, he was clothed with a shirt and a pair of trowsers, and christened "Jack," by which name he was afterwards always called, and to which he readily answered. As soon as he reached the shore, his companions came to meet him, to hear an account of what had transpired during their absence, as well as to examine his new habiliments, which, as may be conceived, had effected a very considerable alteration in his appearance, and at the same time that the change created much admiration on the part of his companions, it raised him very considerably in his own estimation. It was, however, a substitution that did not improve his appearance; in fact, he cut but a sorry figure, in our eyes, in his checquered shirt and tarry trowsers, when standing amongst his companions, with their long beards and kangaroo-skin mantles thrown carelessly over their shoulders.

Upon being accosted by his companions, Jack was either sullen with them, or angry with us for sending him on shore, for without deigning to reply to their questions, he separated himself from them, and after watching us in silence for some time, walked quietly and slowly away, followed at a distance by his friends, who were lost in wonder at what could have happened to their sulky companion. The grog that he had been drinking had probably taken effect upon his head, and, although the quantity was very trifiing, he might have been a little stupefied.

At daylight the following morning the natives had again collected on both sides, and upon the jolly-boat's landing the people to examine the wells, Jack, having quite recovered his good humour, got into the boat and came on board. The natives on the opposite side were vociferous to visit us, and were holding long conversations with Jack, who explained every thing to them in a song, to which they would frequently exclaim in full chorus the words" Cai, cai, cai, cai, caigh," which they always repeated when any thing was shown that excited their surprise. Finding we had no intention of sending a boat for them, they amused themselves in fishing. Two of them were watching a small seal that, having been left by the tide on the bank, was endeavouring to waddle towards the deep water; at last one of the natives, fixing his spear in its throwing-stick, advanced very cautiously, and, when within ten or twelve yards, lanced it, and pierced the animal through the neck, when the other instantly ran up and struck his spear into it also, and then beating it about the head with a small hammer, very soon despatched it.

This event collected the whole tribe to the spot, who assisted in landing their prize, and washing the sand off the body; they then carried the animal to their fire at the edge of the grass, and began to devour it even before it was dead. Curiosity induced Mr. Cunningham and myself to view this barbarous feast, and we landed about ten minutes after it had commenced. The moment the boat touched the sand, the natives, springing up and throwing their spears away into the bushes, ran down towards us; and, before we could land, had all seated themselves in the boat ready to go on board, but they were obliged to wait whilst we landed to witness their savage feast. On going to the place we found an old man seated over the remains of the carcass, two-thirds of which had already disappeared; he was holding a long strip of the raw flesh in his left hand, and tearing it off the body with a sort of knife; a boy was also feasting with him, and both were too intent upon their breakfast to notice us, or to be the least disconcerted at our looking on. We, however, were very soon satisfied, and walked