NATIVES ON THE OPPOSITE BANK.

Piper, with that keenness of vision so peculiar in savages, soon descried some natives on the other side, and pointed out to me a tribe filing in a straggling line through the woods at a distance.  I made him cooey to them, they answered the call, and in a short time appeared on the opposite bank.  Our first interview with these sons of the woods was highly creditable to them.  They advanced in a numerous group, but in a silent and submissive manner, each having a green bough twined round the waist or in his hand.  They sat down on the opposite bank and The Widow, having taken a position exactly facing them, held a parley which commenced before I could get to the spot.  It was now that we learnt the full value of this female, for it appeared that while some diffidence or ceremony always prevents the male natives, when strangers to each other, from speaking at first sight, no such restraint is imposed on the gins; who with the privilege of their sex are ever ready to speak, and the strangers as it seemed to answer; for thus at least we held converse with this tribe across the river.  Our female guide, who had scarcely before ventured to look up, stood now boldly forward and addressed the strange tribe in a very animated and apparently eloquent manner; and when her countenance was thus lighted up, displaying fine teeth and great earnestness of manner, I was delighted to perceive what soul the woman possessed, and could not but consider our party fortunate in having met with such an interpreter.

THEY SWIM ACROSS.

At length the strangers proposed swimming over to us and we invited them to do so.

AFRAID OF THE SHEEP.

They then requested that those wild animals, the sheep and horses, might be driven away, at which The Widow and Piper’s gin laughed heartily, but they were removed accordingly.  The warriors of the Murrumbidgee were about to plunge into the angry flood, desirous, no doubt, of showing off like so many Caesars before these females, but their fears of the sheep, which they could not hide, must have said little for their prowess in the eyes of the damsels on our side of the water.  The weather was cold, but the stranger who first swam across bore in one hand a piece of burning wood and a green branch.  He was no sooner landed than he converted his embers into a fire to dry himself.  Immediately after him followed a grey-haired chief (of whom I had heard on the Lachlan) and two others.  It appeared however that Piper did not at first understand their language, saying it was “Irish”; but it happened that there was with this tribe a native of Cudjallagong (Regent’s lake) and it was rather curious to see him act as interpreter between Piper and the others.

THEIR REPORTS ABOUT THE JUNCTION OF THE DARLING.

We learnt that the Murrumbidgee joined a much larger river named the Milliwa, a good way lower down, and that these united streams met, at a still greater distance, the Oolawambiloa, a river from the north which received a smaller one, bringing with it all the waters of Wamboul (the Macquarie).  These natives proposed to amuse us with a corrobory dance, to which I did not object, but they postponed it until the following evening.