In this manner do these people climb trees, whose circumference is ten or fifteen feet, or upwards, after an opossum or a squirrel, though they rise to the height of sixty or eighty feet before there is a single branch.

Governor Phillip had occasionally seen a few of the natives climb the trees at Sydney and Rose-Hill, but this old man greatly surpassed them.  In the evening, the four natives and the child took their places at the fire, and a scene ensued which shows that these people are not a little superstitious.

Colebe had been wounded below the left breast with a fiz-gig, and though it must have been done many years back, or the wound must have been slight, as it was difficult to discover any scar, yet it was supposed he felt some pain, though it probably might be occasioned by the straps of his knapsack; however, the youngest of the two strangers was applied to for relief.

He began the ceremony by taking a mouthful of water, which he squirted on the part affected, and then applying his mouth, he began to suck as long as he could without taking breath; this seemed to make him sick, and when he rose up, (for his patient was sitting on the ground) he walked about for a few minutes, and then began to suck again, till it was again necessary for him to take breath:  this was repeated three times, and he seemed, by drawing in his stomach, to feel the pain he had drawn from the breast of his patient; and having picked up a bit of stick or stone, which he did with so little caution that several of the party saw him, he pretended to take something out of his mouth and throw it into the river.  He certainly did throw something away, which must be what he picked up; but Colebe, after the ceremony was over, said it was what he had sucked from his breast, which some understood to be two barbs of a fiz-gig, as he made use of the word Bul-ler-doo-ul; but Governor Phillip was of opinion he meant two pains.

Before this business was finished, the doctor felt his patient’s back below the shoulder, and seemed to apply his fingers as if he twitched something out; after which, he sat down by the patient, and put his right arm round his back; the old man, at the same time, sat down on the other side the patient, with his face the contrary way, and clasped him round the breast with his right arm; each of them had hold of one of the patient’s hands, in which situation they remained a few minutes.

Thus ended the ceremony, and Colebe said he was well.  He gave his worsted night cap and the best part of his supper to the doctor as a fee; and being asked, if both the men were doctors, he said, yes, and the child was a doctor also, so that it may be presumed the power of healing wounds descends from father to son.

This affair being finished, most of the party fell asleep, whilst the two doctors were amused by Colebe and Ballederry, with an account of the buildings at Sydney and Rose-Hill, and in what manner the colonists lived:  in this history, names were as particularly attended to as if their hearers had been intimately acquainted with every person who was mentioned.