Had these people been of an unfriendly temper, we could not by any possibility have escaped them, for our horses could not have broken into a canter to save our lives or their own.  We were therefore wholly in their power, although happily for us perhaps, they were not aware of it; but, so far from exhibiting any unkind feeling, they treated us with genuine hospitality, and we might certainly have commanded whatever they had.  Several of them brought us large troughs of water, and when we had taken a little, held them up for our horses to drink; an instance of nerve that is very remarkable, for I am quite sure that no white man, (having never seen or heard of a horse before, and with the natural apprehension the first sight of such an animal would create,) would deliberately have walked up to what must have appeared to them most formidable brutes, and placing the troughs they carried against their breast, have allowed the horses to drink, with their noses almost touching them.  They likewise offered us some roasted ducks, and some cake.  When we walked over to their camp, they pointed to a large new hut, and told us we could sleep there, but I had noticed a little hillock on which there were four box-trees, about fifty yards from the native encampment, on which, foreseeing that we could go no farther, I had already determined to remain, and on my intimating this to the natives they appeared highly delighted; we accordingly went to the trees, and unsaddling our animals turned them out to feed.  When the natives saw us quietly seated they came over, and brought a quantity of sticks for us to make a fire, wood being extremely scarce.

The men of this tribe were, without exception, the finest of any I had seen on the Australian Continent.  Their bodies were not disfigured by any scars, neither were their countenances by the loss of any teeth, nor were they circumcised.  They were a well-made race, with a sufficiency of muscular development, and stood as erect as it was possible to do, without the unseemly protrusion of stomach, so common among the generality of natives.  Of sixty-nine who I counted round me at one time, I do not think there was one under my own height, 5 feet 10 3/4 inches, but there were several upwards of 6 feet.  The children were also very fine, and I thought healthier and better grown than most I had seen, but I observed here, as elsewhere amongst smaller tribes, that the female children were more numerous than the males, why such should be the case, it is difficult to say.  Whilst, however, I am thus praising the personal appearance of the men, I am sorry to say I observed but little improvement in the fairer sex.  They were the same half-starved unhappy looking creatures whose condition I have so often pitied elsewhere.