Towards Evening Wylie Returned Gloomy And Sulky, And Without Having Fired A Shot; Neither Had He Brought The Horses Up

With him to water as I had requested him to do, and now it was too late to go for

Them, and they would have to be without water for the night. I was vexed at this, and gave him a good scolding for his negligence, after which I endeavoured to ascertain what had so thoroughly put him out of humour, for ordinarily he was one of the best tempered natives I had met with: a single sentence revealed the whole - "The - - dogs had eaten the skin."

This observation came from the very bottom of his soul, and at once gave me an idea of the magnitude of the disappointment he had sustained; the fact was, upon leaving the camp in the morning he had taken a firestick in his hand, and gone straight back to where we skinned the kangaroo on the 21st, with the intention of singeing off the hair and eating the skin, which had been left hanging over a bush. Upon his arrival he found it gone: the wild dogs had been beforehand with him and deprived him of the meal he expected; hence his gloomy, discontented look upon his return. As yet I had not told him that I had been fishing; but upon showing him what I had brought home, and giving him the two largest for supper, his brow again cleared, and he voluntarily offered to go out again to try to get a kangaroo to-morrow.

May 23. - Leaving Wylie asleep at the camp, I set off early to fish at Point Malcolm. After catching four rock-fish, weighing five pounds, and losing several hooks, I commenced hunting about among the rocks for crabs, of which I procured about a dozen They were quite different from the English crab, being very small, not more than three or four inches in diameter, and without any meat in the inside of the shell; but the chine and claws afforded very fair pickings. Upon returning to the camp, I learnt from Wylie with great satisfaction that he had shot another kangaroo as he went to bring up the horses. The latter were now at the camp; so sending him to water them, I remained behind to dry my clothes, which had got thoroughly wetted in catching the crabs.

Upon Wylie's return I mounted him on one of the horses, and accompanying him on foot, proceeded to where he had left the kangaroo; as it was only one mile and a half away we brought it back upon the horse, entire, that we might skin it more leisurely at the camp. It was a larger one than the last, and promised an abundant supply of food for some days; added to this we had five pounds of fish and a dozen crabs, so that our larder was well and variously stocked. Upon skinning the kangaroo, Wylie carefully singed, folded up, and put away the skin for another day, fully determined that this time he would lose no part of the precious prize. Having taken the paunch and emptied it, he proceeded to make a kind of haggis (rather a dirty one to be sure), by putting into it the liver, lights, heart, and small intestines, and then tying it up, thrust it into the fire to be roasted whole.

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