About half-past four in the afternoon a party of the tribe made their appearance in the same quarter; holding out boughs, but according to a very different ceremonial from any hitherto observed towards us by the aborigines.  They used the most violent and expressive gestures, apparently to induce us to go back whence we had come; and as I felt that we were rather unceremonious invaders of their country it was certainly my duty to conciliate them by every possible means.  Accordingly I again advanced, bearing a green branch on high, but the repulsive gestures then becoming much more violent than before I stopped at some distance from the party.  Honest Vulcan, our blacksmith (two or three men being near him) was at work with his bellows and anvil near the riverbank.  This man’s labour seemed to excite very much their curiosity; and again the overseer and Bulger advanced quietly towards those natives who had approached nearest to the blacksmith.  Hearing at length much laughter, I concluded that a truce had been effected as usual, and I too walked forward with my branch.  But on going to the spot I found that all the laughter came from our party, the natives having refused to sit down and continuing to wave the branches in our people’s faces, having also repeatedly spit at them; the whole of which conduct was good-naturedly borne in hopes of establishing a more amicable intercourse.  As a peace-offering I then presented the man who appeared to be the leader with a tomahawk, the use of which he immediately guessed by turning round to a log and chopping at it.  Two other stout fellows (our morning visitor being one of them) then rudely demanded my pistols from my belt; whereupon I drew one and, curious to see the effect, I fired it at a tree.

SINGULAR BEHAVIOUR ON THE DISCHARGE OF A PISTOL.

The scene which followed I cannot satisfactorily describe or represent, although I shall never forget it.  As if they had previously suspected we were evil demons, and had at length a clear proof of it, they repeated their gesticulations of defiance with tenfold fury, and accompanied the action with demoniac looks, hideous shouts and a war-song, crouching, jumping, spitting, springing with the spear, and throwing dust at us, as they slowly retired.  In short, their hideous crouching postures, measured gestures, and low jumps, all to the tune of a wild song, with the fiendish glare of their countenances, at times all black, but now all eyes and teeth, seemed a fitter spectacle for Pandemonium than the light of the bounteous sun.  Thus these savages slowly retired along the riverbank, all the while dancing in a circle like the witches in Macbeth, and leaving us in expectation of their return and perhaps an attack in the morning.  Any further attempt to appease them was out of the question.

CONJECTURES.

Whether they were by nature implacable or whether their inveterate hostility proceeded from some cause of disquiet or apprehension unimaginable by us it was too probable they might ere long force upon us the painful necessity of making them acquainted with the superiority of our arms.