spear ATTEMPT AT A CONFERENCE. 363 but as I was not disposed to be so easily got rid of, we pulled near the shore and lay upon our oars, to give them an opportunity of coming up to us. Upon this they mounted a little eminence, blew most furiously at us, and performed other equally efficacious ceremonies. I, however, felt just as well after we had been subjected to this dire sorcery as I did before; and we continued to pull gently along the shore, still trying to induce them to approach, which they at last did, having nothing but a fishingin their hands. To entice them towards us, I had made Kaiber strip himself and stand up in the boat; and now that they were near enough to us, I told him to call out to them, and say that we were friends. He hereupon shouted out,-" Come in, come in; Mr. Grey sulky yu-a-da;" by which he intended to say,-" Come here, come here; Mr. Grey is not angry with you." The two sorcerers, utterly confused by this mode of address, committed more overt acts of witchcraft towards us than they had even hitherto done; and Kaiber, turning round to me, said, "Weak ears have they and wooden foreheads; they do not understand the southern language." But as I was dissatisfied with his proof of their knowledge of the southern language, I desired him to wade ashore and speak to them. This order of mine was a perfect thunderbolt to Kaiber. He, in common with all the aboriginal inhabitants of Australia, had an utter aversion to all strange natives; and to this he joined a sort of 364 KAIBER'S DREAD OF THEM. religious horror of witches, buck-witches, warlocks, and uncanny persons generally. King James the First could never have found a more zealous and participating partner of his fears than Kaiber; he gave me a blank look of horror, and assured me that these were actual sorcerers," northern sorcerers;" and as he repeated these last words there was a mysterious, deep meaning in his tone, as if he expected to see me thrill with terror. From his earliest infancy, he had been accustomed to dread these men; every storm that occur. red he had been taught to consider as arising from their incantations: if one of his friends or relatives died a natural death, he had attributed that death to the spells and unholy practices of these very people, with whom he was now directed to go and hold converse. I thought of all this, and pitied him; for, even for a native, he was excessively superstitious. But I was extremely anxious to establish friendly relations with them; therefore I was positive, and repeated to him my former directions, that he should wade ashore, coax them up, and speak to them. In as far as a native can turn white from fear, Kaiber did turn white, and then stepping into the water he waded ashore, and the two natives cautiously approached him. As soon as they were close to him, I joined the party with a large piece of damper in one hand and a piece of pork in the other. The natives were dreadfully frightened; they stood in the presence of unknown and mys FRIENDLY COMMUNICATION ESTABLISHed. 365 terious beings. No persuasions could induce them to take my hand, or to touch me ; and they trembled from head to foot. For a time they were nearly unintelligible to Kaiber and myself, but as they gained confidence, I found that they spoke a dialect very closely resembling that of the natives to the north of the Swan river. They addressed many questions to us, such as,-Whence we had come? where we were going to? was the boat a dead tree? -but they evaded giving any direct answers to our questions. Being anxious to start, I now left them to bear to their companions the strange food I had bestowed, and to recount to eager listeners the mysterious tale of their interview with beings from another world, and who were of an unknown form and colour. Whilst they hurried off with some such thoughts passing through their minds, we pulled down the Gascoyne in search of new lands and new adventures. The result of this conference affords an example of the grounds upon which any similarity of the language, in different portions of the continent of Australia, has been denied. In this instance, had I at first taken the word of Kaiber for it, I should have left the Gascoyne with a firm conviction that the natives of that part of Australia spoke a radically different language from the natives near the Swan River; and this would have been proved by the fact of a native from the south not understanding them: them: whereas there is a great 366 AFFINITY OF DIALECTS. affinity between the two dialects, to discover which requires, however, an acquaintance with the general principles of language, some knowledge of the one in question, and due patience. I can only say, that wherever I have been, in the southern portions of the continent, I could soon understand the natives. CHAPTER XVI. TO KOLAINA AND BACK TO THE GASCOYNE. GASCOYNE EXAMINE THE COAST TO THE NORTH OF THE PLAINS-INDISPOSITION OF SEVERAL OF THE PARTYEXAMINATION OF THE SHORE TO THE NORTHWARD, AND OF THE COUNTRY TO THE SOUTH-EAST- AFFRAY WITH THE NATIVESCONTINUED FOUL WEATHER- PUT TO SEACOMPELLED AGAIN ΤΟ BEACH THE BOATS -ADJACENT COUNTRY EXPLORED-LAUNCH THE BOATS, AND ENTER NORTHERN MOUTH OF THE GASCOYNE CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY. March 7.-WHEN we got outside the mouth of the Gascoyne, a fresh breeze was blowing from the S.E. We ran along the shore w. by N., keeping about a quarter of a mile from it; and after having made about three miles and a half, we reached the southern extremity of the other mouth of the river. The mean depth in our in our Island had been from two course along Babbage and a half fathoms to three fathoms; and this opening had a bar which we then conceived to run right across the mouth of the river. The northern extremity of Babbage Island is a very remarkable low point of land, which |