Of Course Nobody Had Let Them Go!

Every other member of the party informed me that they were ready to take their dying oaths that the

Horses never got away in their watches, and that neither of them had any trouble whatever in driving them back, etc.; so I could only conclude that I must have let them all go myself, because, as they were gone, and nobody else let them go, why, of course, I suppose I must. After breakfast Mr. Tietkens went to try to recover them, but soon returned, informing me he had met a number of natives at the smoke-house, who appeared very peaceably inclined, and who were on their road down through the pass. This was rather unusual; previous to our conflict they had never come near us, and since that, they had mostly given us a wide berth, and seemed to prefer being out of the reach of our rifles than otherwise. They soon appeared, although they kept away on the east side of the creek. They then shouted, and when I cooeyed and beckoned them to approach, they sat down in a row. I may here remark that the word cooey, as representing the cry of all Australian aborigines, belonged originally to only one tribe or region, but it has been carried about by whites from tribe to tribe, and is used by the civilised and semi-civilised races; but wild natives who have never seen whites use no such cry. There were thirteen of these men. Mr. Tietkens and I went over to them, and we had quite a friendly conference. Their leader was an individual of a very uncertain age - he might have been forty, or he might have been eighty (in the shade). (This was written some time before the "Mikado" appeared. - E.G.) His head was nearly bald on the crown, but some long grizzly locks depended below the bald patch.

The others were generally much younger, but some of them, though not clean past their youth, yet had about them some smacks of the saltness of age. The old man was the most self-possessed; the others displayed a nervous tremor at our approach; those nearest us sidled closer to their more remote and, as they no doubt thought, fortunate fellows; they were all extremely ill-favoured in face, but their figures were not so outres, except that they appeared emaciated and starved, otherwise they would have been men of good bulk. Their legs were straight, and their height would average five feet nine inches, all being much taller than Mr. Tietkens or I. Two remained at a distance; these had a great charge to superintend, it being no less than that of the trained wild dogs belonging to the tribe. There were three large dogs, two of a light sandy, and one of a kind of German colley colour. These natives were armed with an enormous number of light barbed spears, each having about a dozen. They do not appear to use the boomerang very generally in this part of the continent, although we have occasionally picked up portions of old ones in our travels. Mr. Tietkens gave each of these natives a small piece of sugar, with which they seemed perfectly charmed, and in consequence patted the seat of their intellectual - that is to say, digestive - organs with great gusto, as the saccharine morsels liquefied in their mouths. They seemed highly pleased with the appearance and antics of my little dog, who both sat and stood up at command in the midst of them.

They kept their own dogs away, I presume, for fear we might want to seize them for food - wild dog standing in about the same relation to a wild Australian native, as a sheep would to a white man. They eat all the grown dogs they can catch, but keep a few pups to train for hunting, and wonderful hunting dogs they are. Hence their fear of our taking their pets. The old gentleman was much delighted with my watch. I then showed them some matches, and the instantaneous ignition of some grass in the midst of them was rather too startling a phenomenon for their weak minds; some of them rose to depart. The old man, however, reassured them. I presented him with several matches, and showed him how to use them; he was very much pleased, and having no pockets in his coat - for I might have previously remarked they were arrayed in Nature's simple garb - he stuck them in his hair. Mr. Tietkens, during this time, was smoking, and the sight of smoke issuing from his mouth seemed to disturb even the old man's assumed imperturbability, and he kept much closer to me in consequence. I next showed them a revolver, and tried to explain the manner of using it. Most of them repeated the word bang when I said it; but when I fired it off they were too agitated to take much notice of its effect on the bark of a tree, which might otherwise have served to point a moral or adorn a tale in the oral traditions of their race for ever. At the report of the revolver all rose and seemed in haste to go, but I would not allow my dear old friend to depart without a few last friendly expressions. One of these natives was pitted with small-pox. They seemed to wish to know where we were going, and when I pointed west, and by shaking my fingers intimated a long way, many of them pulled their beards and pointed to us, and the old man gave my beard a slight pull and pointed west; this I took to signify that they were aware that other white people like us lived in that direction. The conference ended, and they departed over the hills on the east side of the pass, but it was two hours before they disappeared.

All the horses which had escaped in hobbles the other night now came to water, and were put through the pass again.

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