On the party leaving this place, the old native returned to his canoe, but he joined them soon afterwards, and gave Governor Phillip two stone hatchets, two spears, and a throwing-stick:  this present was made in consequence of our two natives telling him who all the party were.  In return for the old man’s present, he had some bread, some fish-hooks, and a couple of small hatchets given him.  The spears were well made; one of them had a single barb of wood fixed on with gum, the other had two large barbs cut out of the solid wood, and it was as finely brought to a point as if it had been made with the sharpest instrument.  The throwing-stick had a piece of hard stone fixed in gum instead of the shell which is commonly used by the natives who live on the sea coast:  it is with these stones, which they bring to a very sharp edge, that the natives make their spears.

The old native followed our party in his canoe as they kept along the banks of the river, and another canoe, with a woman and child, joined him:  the old man observing that they did not keep near enough the water’s edge to have the least fatigue in walking, came out of his canoe and took the lead, and he soon brought them to a path made by the natives, where it was very good walking, and which ran alongside the river.  It was near four o’clock when they stopped for the night, and were joined by a young man and a lively little boy, who they soon found intended, as well as the old man, to take up their residence with them, though their families were on the opposite bank, and they had two fires lighted.

Though our natives appeared to be on very friendly terms with their new acquaintances, yet they certainly had no particular affection for them, and spoke of them very lightly when they were out of hearing; particularly Ballederry, who said the youngest man of the two was bad:  his name was Yal-lah-mien-di; they supposed him to be the old man’s son, and the child to be his grandson.  The old man called himself Go-me-bee-re, and said the child’s name was Jim-bah; they were of the tribe of Bu-ru-be-rong-al.

Colebe and Ballederry, in describing that tribe on the second day’s journey, had called them climbers of trees, and men who lived by hunting; certainly, no persons can better deserve the appellation of climbers, if we may judge from what was seen of Go-me-bee-re, who, for a biscuit, in a very few minutes cut his notches in the bark of a tree and mounted it with surprising agility, though an old man.  These notches are cut in the bark little more than an inch deep, which receives the ball of the great toe; the first and second notches are cut from the ground; the rest they cut as they ascend, and at such a distance from each other, that when both their feet are in the notches, the right foot is raised nearly as high as the middle of the left thigh:  when they are going to raise themselves a step, their hatchet is held in the mouth, in order to have the use of both their hands; and, when cutting the notch, the weight of the body rests on the ball of the great toe:  the fingers of the left hand are also fixed in a notch cut on the side of the tree for that purpose, if it is too large to admit their clasping it sufficiently with the left arm to keep the body close to the tree.