Several anecdotes of his adventures confirmed my own experience, and add weight to the opinions I have before expressed.  From his description of the tribes his party had encountered, he must have been among a people more advanced in civilization than any we had hitherto seen upon this coast.  He found several curious figures,* images, and drawings, generally in colours, upon the sides of caves in the sandstone rock, which, notwithstanding their rude style, yet evince a greater degree of advancement and intelligence than we have been able to find any traces of:  at the same time it must be remembered that no certain date absolutely connects these works with the present generation:  the dryness of the natural walls upon which they are executed, and the absence of any atmospheric moisture may have, and may yet preserve them for an indefinite period, and their history read aright, may testify not the present condition of the Australian School of Design, but the perfection which it had formerly attained.

(Footnote.  Illustrated in Lieutenant Grey’s first Volume.)

LIGHT-COLOURED NATIVES.

Lieutenant Grey too, like ourselves, had seen certain individuals in company with the natives much lighter in colour, and widely differing in figure and physiognomy from the savages by whom they were surrounded; and was inclined to believe that they are descended from Dutch sailors, who at different times, suffering shipwreck upon the coast, have intermarried with its native inhabitants:  but as no authentic records can be produced to prove that this portion of the coast was ever visited by Dutch navigators at all, I am still more disposed to believe that these lighter coloured people are Malays, captured from the Trepang fishers, or perhaps voluntarily associating with the Australian, as we know that the Australian not unfrequently abandons his country, and his mode of life, to visit the Indian Archipelago with them.

Before pursuing any further the train of speculation in which my thoughts naturally enough arranged themselves, owing to this meeting with Lieutenant Grey, it may be as well to advert to the circumstances under which he and his party were found by Captain Wickham.  It seems that on moving into Port George the Fourth, the ship’s guns were fired in order to apprize the wanderers, if within hearing, that friends and aid were at hand.  These signals were heard on board the Lynher, and were at once rightly understood to denote the presence of the Beagle.  At that time, however, the master of the Lynher—­the schooner which Lieutenant Grey had chartered at the Cape, was himself in no small perplexity as to the fate of those he had transported to this lonely coast; and was now growing exceedingly anxious at their non-appearance.