were disabled for life.  No wonder that but one party, escaping from Macquarrie Harbor convict settlement, arrived at the civilized region in safety.  Men perished in the scrub, were lost in snow, or were devoured by their companions.  This was the territory traversed by Mr. Robinson and his Black guides.  All honor to his intrepidity, and their wonderful fidelity!  When they had, in the depth of winter, to cross deep and rapid rivers, pass among mountains six thousand feet high, pierce dangerous thickets, and find food in a country forsaken even by birds, we can realize their hardships.

“After a frightful journey by Cradle Mountain, and over the lofty plateau of Middlesex Plains, the travelers experienced unwonted misery, and the circumstances called forth the best qualities of the noble little band.  Mr. Robinson wrote afterwards to Mr. Secretary Burnett some details of this passage of horrors.  In that letter, of Oct 2, 1834, he states that his Natives were very reluctant to go over the dreadful mountain passes; that ’for seven successive days we continued traveling over one solid body of snow;’ that ‘the snows were of incredible depth;’ that ’the Natives were frequently up to their middle in snow.’  But still the ill-clad, ill-fed, diseased, and way-worn men and women were sustained by the cheerful voice of their unconquerable friend, and responded most nobly to his call.”

Mr. Bonwick says that Robinson’s friendly capture of the Big River tribe remember, it was a whole tribe—­“was by far the grandest feature of the war, and the crowning glory of his efforts.”  The word “war” was not well chosen, and is misleading.  There was war still, but only the Blacks were conducting it—­the Whites were holding off until Robinson could give his scheme a fair trial.  I think that we are to understand that the friendly capture of that tribe was by far the most important thing, the highest in value, that happened during the whole thirty years of truceless hostilities; that it was a decisive thing, a peaceful Waterloo, the surrender of the native Napoleon and his dreaded forces, the happy ending of the long strife.  For “that tribe was the terror of the colony,” its chief “the Black Douglas of Bush households.”

Robinson knew that these formidable people were lurking somewhere, in some remote corner of the hideous regions just described, and he and his unarmed little party started on a tedious and perilous hunt for them.  At last, “there, under the shadows of the Frenchman’s Cap, whose grim cone rose five thousand feet in the uninhabited westward interior,” they were found.  It was a serious moment.  Robinson himself believed, for once, that his mission, successful until now, was to end here in failure, and that his own death-hour had struck.

The redoubtable chief stood in menacing attitude, with his eighteen-foot spear poised; his warriors stood massed at his back, armed for battle, their faces eloquent with their long-cherished loathing for white men.  “They rattled their spears and shouted their war-cry.”  Their women were back of them, laden with supplies of weapons, and keeping their 150 eager dogs quiet until the chief should give the signal to fall on.