The country through which we were travelling is intersected by a long line of lakes which run nearly parallel to the sea for a distance of about forty-five miles.  One of the party had travelled in the same direction with me before, but we had then kept along the edge of the lakes.  He had imagined however that they were only two or three miles distant from the sea, whereas many of them were as much as eight or ten.  The route we were pursuing was about midway between the lakes and the sea, and this man seeing nothing of the lakes could not be convinced that I was right in the position I said we then were; for I assured the men they were not more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight miles to the north of Perth; but I heard him relating his doubts, which tended to discourage the others very much.

A party of natives.

We however walked on as well as we could until near noon, at which time, from excessive weakness, we had not made more than eight miles, or about a mile and a quarter an hour, when we suddenly came out on the bed of a dried-up swamp, now looking like a desert of white sand studded with reeds.  The forms of natives were seen wandering about this, one mile from us, who were searching for frogs.  There was a very numerous party, and they did not appear at all inclined to approach us.  Now it was very evident that if we were so near Perth as I imagined these natives must be well acquainted with Europeans; for although but very little was known of the country to the north of Perth, and the farthest settlement in that direction was only four miles from the town, still the natives must, from mere curiosity, have been frequently in the settlement.

Joyful interview with A friendly tribe.  Kaiber’s opinion of them.

We therefore approached them but as we came near they withdrew.  Kaiber was now called into consultation; he scrutinised them long and carefully, and then announced that they were “mondak yoongar,” wild natives; and, after a second survey of them, declared that they had the “mondak kurrang kombar,” or great bush fury, on them, or rather, were subject to wild untutored rage.  After making this announcement he squatted down under a bush to conceal himself, and then recapitulating rapidly all the dangers we had gone through, conjured me not to bring him into a fresh scrape by having anything to do with such a numerous party of his countrymen in our present weak state.

The men, who understood enough of what he was saying to know that he thought these natives had never seen Europeans, became extremely uneasy and begged me to allow them to fire a gun as a signal to them:  “For if we are so near Perth as you suppose, Sir,” they said to me, “these natives will come to us.”  Kaiber hereupon told me that the instant the gun was fired he should run away.  This was rather too ridiculous a threat when the coward was afraid to move five yards from us; I therefore ordered a gun to be fired, and then, telling the men to remain steady and prepared in case of accident, I walked off towards the natives, Kaiber, in the meanwhile, sitting on his haunches under cover, muttering to himself, “The swan, the big head, the stone forehead;” and, as these denunciations reached me, I could not, even in all my misery, forbear smiling at them.