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i 12 were painted, and a reed or bone was thrust through the septum of their nostrils. Uncouth drawings of human dancing figures were described appearing on their skin cloaks. The traveller had so mean an opinion of their prowess, as to believe that the kangaroo would be wholly out of the reach of their weapons or tiheir ingenuity. At first they were civil enough ; the sailors, of course, treated them with some grog; but the tasteless barbarians had the ill-manners to spit it out again with shaking heads and wry faces. Some approached the boat and extracted a tomahawk, an axe, and a saw. Upon some warm expostulation, a small party at a little distance were cut off from the rest, and W. Harris, the master’s mate, carried off in a blackfellow’s arms. The lieutenant came up and fired over their heads. They hastily fled. Rallying, talking, examining, and finding no one in jured by the awful sound of the gun, they advanced again down the hill. A tall chieftain, a most courageous fellow, came up alone to the tent with fierce gesticulations, and shaking his large war spear at the white intruders. The English officer admired his bravery, laid down his gun. stretched out his arms, and walked towards him. But the dark mass on the hill were still seen descending flourishing their weapons. Tuckey called upon the chief to keep them back. The savage ordered his countrymen to stop; they misunderstood his appeal, or disregarded his authority. In self-defence, then, the seamen fired at the foremost of the tribe ; he fell dead instantly, and the chief and his men were quickly out of sight. In the Rev. R. Knopwood’s Journal we have allusion to this scene. “ Had not Lieutenant Tuckey fortunately come up with his boat,” says he, “ there is no doubt they would have killed Mr. Gammon and Mr. Harris, and their two men, and perhaps have eaten them, for there is great reason to believe they are cannibals.” Although lieutenant Tuckey has so little to report in his work upon the subject of water on this trip, the journal of the clergyman contains two references of interest. “Oct. 21—He (Tuckey) reported having landed at several places, and found the soil bad, the trees very small, and but little water. Oct. 22—Lieutenant Tuckey has found a fresh water river more to the north-east side of the Bay.” All this while they at the settlement were not idle. The evidences of civilization so struck the imaginative and romantic sailor writer, that he exclaims “ The last hymn of the feathered choristers to the sun, and the soft murmurs of the breeze, faintly broke the death-like silence that reigned around ; while the lightly trodden path of the
