ncely vestments. I asked them
to accompany me to the vessel, to which request I received a rather
feeling reply, by their pointing, first to their children, and next to
their own naked feet, importing that they could not walk so fast as
ourselves, but would come down in a few day. In the course of the late
transaction, I had no difficulty in discovering their sacred and private
mark, so important in all their transactions, and universally respected.
I obtained a knowledge of this mark by means of one of my Sydney
natives, Bungit, who, going behind a tree, out of sight of the females
made the Sydney aboriginal mark. I afterwards took two others of my
natives, and the principal chief of Port Phillip to whom I showed the
mark on the tree, which he instantly recognized, and pointed, also, to
the knocking out of the front tooth. This mark is always made
simultaneously with the loss or extraction of the tooth. I requested
the chief through the interpretation of my Sydney natives, to give the
imprint of his mark. After a few minutes hesitation, he took a tomahawk
and did as he was desired, on the bark of a tree. A copy of this mark is
attached to the deed, as the signature and seal of their country.

About 10 a.m. I took my departure from these interesting people. The
principal chief could not be less than six feet four inches high, and
his proportions gigantic; his brother six feet two inches, also a fine
man. I recrossed Batman's Creek, and travelled over thinly-timbered
country of box, gum, wattle, and she-oak, with grass three of four feet
high. Travelling twelve miles down we came, subsequently, upon a
thinly-timbered forest of gum, wattle and oak. Here, for the first time,
the land became sandy, with a little gravel. The grass was ten inches
high, and resembled a field of wheat. We have not seen the slightest
appearance of frost. After leaving this forest, we came upon the river I
had gone up a few days before. Intending to come down on the opposite
side and hail the vessel, I crossed on the banks of the river, a large
marsh, one mile and a half broad by three or four long, of the richest
diluvium; not a tree was to be seen. Having crossed this marsh we passed
through a dense tea-tree scrub, very high, expecting to make the vessel
in the course of an hour or two, but, to our great surprise, when we got
through, we found ourselves on the banks of a much larger river than the
one we had originally gone up.

As it was now