An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 613 pages of information about An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island.

An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 613 pages of information about An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island.

Though the tribe of Buruberongal, to which these men belonged, live chiefly by hunting, the women are employed in fishing, and our party were told, that they caught large mullet in the river.  Neither of these men had lost their front tooth, and the names they gave to several parts of the body were such as the natives about Sydney had never been heard to make use of.  Ga-dia (the penis), they called Cud-da; Go-rey (the ear), they called -Ben-ne_; in the word mi (the eye), they pronounced the letter I as an E; and in many other instances their pronunciation varied, so that there is good reason to believe several different languages are spoken by the natives of this country, and this accounts for only one or two of those words given in Captain Cook’s vocabulary having ever been heard amongst the natives who visited the settlement.

Having taken leave of their new friends the -Car-ra-dy-gans_ (doctors), our party set off at a quarter past seven o’clock in the morning of the 15th of April, and followed the natives path along the banks of the river, walking at a good pace till a quarter past eight o’clock, when they came to a creek which was too wide to be crossed by cutting down a tree, and was too deep to be forded; they were, therefore, obliged to follow its windings till they supposed themselves at the head of it, and then they endeavoured to regain the banks of the river; but they presently found that they had only rounded a small arm of this creek, the principal branch of which they continued to trace with infinite fatigue for the remainder of the day.

It was high water in this creek at forty minutes past twelve o’clock, and at half past three, they found it divide into two branches, either of which might have been crossed on a tree; but by this time the party were tired, and threatened with heavy rain, which would make their night very uncomfortable, as they had no tent; they therefore took up their residence at a spot where a quantity of timber, from trees, which had already been burnt down by the natives, promised them good fires with little labour.

The rain went off after a few light showers, but our two natives now began to grow quite impatient to return home.  Colebe talked about his wife, and said his child would cry; and Ballederry lost all patience when the rain began, telling the governor, that there were good houses at Sydney and Rose-Hill, but that they had no house now, no fish, no melon (of which fruit all the natives are very fond); and there is no doubt but they would have left the party, had they been acquainted with the country through which they had to return.  It was most likely that the greatest part of the next day would be spent in getting to that part of the river which the creek had obliged them to quit, so that two days would be taken up in getting to the opposite side of a creek, not one hundred feet wide; it was, therefore, determined to return to Rose-Hill, which bore from the sleeping place south-east, sixteen miles distant.

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An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.