GRANDY.  “After that, you will readily credit the story I am going to tell you.  A Mr. Meredith went over with his goods to Kangaroo Island, whence he journeyed across the bay to Yankalilly, where he built a hut, placed in it a glass window or two, and made it look snug.  As he was a young man of about twenty-one or twenty-two, his warm, generous spirit had led him into difficulties; and, the friends of his brief sunshine flying from him in his distress, he contracted a disgust for the world.  He lived some time amongst these people, acquired their language, and seemed to be beloved by them all.  But volumes might be filled with accounts of their treachery, and the sequel will sufficiently prove the malignity of these wretched people.  He had adopted one of their sons, and was endeavoring to instruct him in a few points of education.  He had also taken a native woman to assist him in household matters.  One day he went out in his boat, and his favorite boy went with him.  When in the boat, the boy complained of hunger, and Mr. Meredith gave him a biscuit.  The boy commenced eating it, when Mr. Meredith (who was a religious man) observed that he had not thanked the Great God for the food,—­a practice which he invariably endeavored to inculcate.  The boy appeared unwilling to do so:  Mr. Meredith insisted, and on his refusal, he boxed his ears.  The boy thereupon leaped out of the boat, and swam ashore, saying, he should repent it.

“In the evening, Mr. Meredith put his boat ashore, and went to his hut, had his supper, and was preparing for bed; and taking up a prayer-book, as was his custom, was reading the prayers before the fire, with his back to the door, when some natives looked through the window, saw their advantage, and opened the door silently.  The woman, his attendant, then entered with an axe belonging to him in her hand, and several men followed her.  She approached the unsuspecting youth, and, while his soul was devoutly engaged in prayer, she raised the fatal axe, and, with one blow, severed his skull, and the men with their clubs beat his body into a shapeless mass.”

EMMA.  “Poor Mr. Meredith!  What a frightful murder!”

MRS. WILTON.  “The Australians thought nothing of it, for they glory in the most atrocious deeds.  I fear it will be long before they will be civilized.  But let us look at their country, of which, in some respects, but little can be said; for it is not remarkable for its fertility, and in many parts exceedingly barren.  But few animals range there, and in the south-west the natives subsist during the winter chiefly on opossums, kangaroos, and bandicoots, in the summer upon roots, with occasionally a few fish.”

DORA.  “Port Adelaide appears to be a neat town.  Its harbor is a deep creek or inlet of the sea, running out of Gulf St. Vincent:  it contains two spacious wharfs, alongside of which, vessels from Great Britain, Singapore, Manilla, China, Mauritius, Sydney, Hobart Town, and New Zealand, are continually discharging their cargoes.”