There is likewise a nut, which had violent effects on those who ate it unprepared:  the natives soak it in water for seven or eight days, changing the water every day; and at the expiration of that time they roast it in the embers; but the kernel is taken out of the hard shell with which it is enclosed, previous to its being put into the water:  it is nearly equal to the chesnut in goodness.

-Boorong_, the native girl who had lived with the clergyman, returned to him again, after a week’s absence:  some officers had been down the harbour, and she was very happy to embrace that opportunity of getting from the party she had been with.  By her own account, she had joined the young man she wished to marry, and had lived with him three days; but he had another wife, who the girl said was jealous, and had beat her; indeed, evident marks of this appeared about her head, which was so bruised as to require the surgeon’s attention:  in return for this unkind treatment, it seems her favourite had beat his wife.

But opportunities were not now wanting to show that the women are in general treated very roughly; for Colebe brought his wife to visit Governor Phillip, and though she was big with child, and appeared to be within a very few days of her time, there were several wounds on her head, which she said he had lately given her:  he seemed to be pleased that she could show her marks, and took some pains to inform the governor that he had beat her with a wooden sword.

Early in the morning of the 13th of November, sixteen of the natives visited the settlement, and some fish being distributed amongst them, they made a fire in the governor’s yard, and sat down to breakfast in great good humour:  those that were strangers, appeared highly delighted with the novelties that surrounded them.  Amongst the strangers, there was a woman whose skin, when free from dirt and smoke, was of a bright copper colour; her features were pleasing, and of that kind of turn, that had she been in any European settlement, no one would have doubted her being a Mulatto Jewess.

Bannelong, who had been for two days with some of his party at Botany-Bay, came along with these people and brought his wife with him:  she appeared to be very ill, and had a fresh wound on her head, which he gave Governor Phillip to understand she had merited, for breaking a fiz-gig and a throwing stick.  The governor’s reasoning with him on this subject had no effect; he said she was bad, and therefore he had beat her; neither could it be learned what inducement this woman could have to do an act which she must have known would be followed by a severe beating; for Bannelong either did not understand the questions put to him, or was unwilling to answer them.  When these people had finished their breakfast, they all went to the hospital to get the womens’ heads dressed; for besides Bannelong’s wife, a woman who was a stranger, had received a blow on the head, which had laid her scull bare.