We passed a small pond, the name of which was Burdenda, and afterwards came to Cudduldury where we encamped with the intention of making what further search we could for Mr. Cunningham.

INTERVIEW WITH THE KING OF THE BOGAN.

While the men were pitching the tents at this place I rode with the natives, at their request, towards some ponds lower down.  There, by their cooeys and their looks, they seemed to be very anxious about somebody in the bush beyond the Bogan.  I expected to see their chief; at all events from these silent woods something was to emerge in which my guides were evidently much interested, as they kept me waiting nearly an hour for

The unseen genius of the wood.

At length a man of mild but pensive countenance, athletic form, and apparently about fifty years of age, came forth, leading a very fine boy, so dressed with green boughs that only his head and legs remained uncovered; a few emu-feathers being mixed with the wild locks of his hair.  I received him in this appropriate costume, as a personification of the green bough, or emblem of peace.*

(Footnote.  The Grecians used to supplicate with green boughs in their hands, and crowns upon their heads, chiefly of olive or laurel, whence Statius says: 

Mite nemus circa ——­
Vittatae laurus, et supplicis arbor olivae.)

One large feather decked the brow of the chief; which with his nose, was tinged with yellow ochre.  Having presented the boy to me, he next advanced with much formality towards the camp, having Tackijally on his right, the boy walking between, and rather in advance of both, each having a hand on his shoulder.

The boy’s face had a holiday look of gladness, but the chief remained so silent and serious, without however any symptoms of alarm, that my recollections of him then, and as he appeared next day, when better acquainted, are as of two distinct persons.

To this personage all the others paid the greatest deference, and it is worthy of remark that they always refused to tell his name, or that of several others, while those of some of the tribe were familiar in our mouths as household words.  The boy, who was called Talambe Nadoo, was not his son; but he took particular care of him.  This tribe gloried in the name of Myall, which the natives nearer to the colony apply in terror and abhorrence to the wild blackfellows, to whom they usually attribute the most savage propensities.

Not a word could this chief of the Myalls speak besides his own language; and his slow and formal approach indicated that it was undoubtedly the first occasion on which he had seen white men.  It was evident at once that he was not the man to wander to stock-stations; and that, whatever others of his race might do, he preferred an undisputed sway: 

Far from the cheerful haunt of men and herds.

Numbers of the tribe came about us, but they retired at the chief’s bidding.  Not one however except those first met with in the Bogan, could speak any of the jargon by which the natives usually communicate with the stockmen.