ey were going
up the creek and that I had better go downwards; but I pretended
not to understand them. The same day they shifted camp, and I
followed them, and on reaching their camp I shot some crows, which
pleased them so much that they made me a breakwind in the centre of
their camp, and came and sat round me until such time as the crows
were cooked, when they assisted me to eat them. The same day one of
the women, to whom I had given part of a crow, came and gave me a
ball of nardoo, saying that she would give me more only she had
such a sore arm that she was unable to pound. She showed me a sore
on her arm, and the thought struck me that I would boil some water
in the billy and wash her arm with a sponge. During the operation,
the whole tribe sat round and were muttering one to another. Her
husband sat down by her side, and she was crying all the time.
After I had washed it, I touched it with some nitrate of silver,
when she began to yell, and ran off, crying out "Mokow! Mokow!"
(Fire! Fire!). From this time, she and her husband used to give me
a small quantity of nardoo both night and morning, and whenever the
tribe was about going on a fishing excursion he used to give me
notice to go with them. They also used to assist me in making a
wurley or breakwind whenever they shifted camp. I generally shot a
crow or a hawk, and gave it to them in return for these little
services. Every four or five days the tribe would surround me and
ask whether I intended going up or down the creek; at last I made
them understand that if they went up I should go up the creek, and
if they went down I should also go down; and from this time they
seemed to look upon me as one of themselves, and supplied me with
fish and nardoo regularly: they were very anxious, however, to know
where Mr. Burke lay, and one day when we were fishing in the
waterholes close by, I took them to the spot. On seeing his
remains, the whole party wept bitterly, and covered them with
bushes. After this, they were much kinder to me than before, and I
always told them that the white men would be here before two moons;
and in the evening when they came with nardoo and fish they used to
talk about the "white-fellows" coming, at the same time pointing to
the moon. I also told them they would receive many presents, and
they constantly asked me for tomahawks, called by them "Bomay Ko."
From this time to when the relief party arrived, a period of about
a month, they treat