Nanbaree Was Adopted
By Mr. White, Surgeon-General Of The Settlement, And Became Henceforth
One Of His Family.
Arabanoo had no sooner heard of the death of his countryman, than he hastened
to inter him.
I was present at the ceremony, in company with the governor,
captain Ball, and two or three other persons. It differed, by the accounts
of those who were present at the funeral of the girl, in no respect
from what had passed there in the morning, except that the grave was dug
by a convict. But I was informed, that when intelligence of the death
reached Arabanoo, he expressed himself with doubt whether he should bury,
or burn the body; and seemed solicitous to ascertain which ceremony
would be most gratifying to the governor.
Indeed, Arabanoo's behaviour, during the whole of the transactions of this day,
was so strongly marked by affection to his countryman, and by confidence in us,
that the governor resolved to free him from all farther restraint,
and at once to trust to his generosity, and the impression which our treatment
of him might have made, for his future residence among us: the fetter
was accordingly taken off his leg.
In the evening, captain Ball and I crossed the harbour, and buried the corpse
of the woman before mentioned.
Distress continued to drive them in upon us. Two more natives, one of them
a young man, and the other his sister, a girl of fourteen years old,
were brought in by the governor's boat, in a most deplorable state
of wretchedness from the smallpox. The sympathy and affection of Arabanoo,
which had appeared languid in the instance of Nanbaree and his father,
here manifested themselves immediately. We conjectured that a difference
of the tribes to which they belonged might cause the preference; but nothing
afterwards happened to strengthen or confirm such a supposition.
The young man died at the end of three days: the girl recovered,
and was received as an inmate, with great kindness, in the family
of Mrs Johnson, the clergyman's wife. Her name was Booron; but from
our mistake of pronunciation she acquired that of Abaroo, by which
she was generally known, and by which she will always be called in this work.
She shewed, at the death of her brother more feeling than Nanbaree
had witnessed for the loss of his father. When she found him dying,
she crept to his side, and lay by him until forced by the cold to retire.
No exclamation, or other sign of grief, however, escaped her
for what had happened.
May 1789. At sunset, on the evening of the 2d instant, the arrival
the 'Sirius', Captain Hunter, from the Cape of Good Hope, was proclaimed,
and diffused universal joy and congratulation. The day of famine was at least
procrastinated by the supply of flour and salt provisions she brought us.
The 'Sirius' had made her passage to the Cape of Good Hope, by the route of
Cape Horn, in exactly thirteen weeks.
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