picking up the refuse of the sea, and feeding on the aquatic
birds which frequented the islets in great abundance. Many, however,
perished, with the frail boats to which they committed their lives.
Their first stage was known as "Clarke's Island;" from thence they made
"Preservation Island:" a succession of rocks formed land marks in their
course to New Holland, from which many found their way to Kangaroo
Island, the Ultima Thule of their geography. In these places, they
engaged in sealing; the produce of which they sold to the small craft
trading among them, for guns, spirits, and tobacco. When the season was
over, they retired to the interior, and passed their days in alternate
slumber and intoxication.

So secure were some of these retreats, that they justified the
apprehension, that formidable pirates would be trained up in their
lawless and licentious communities. They were perpetually disturbed by
violence. One old man spent thirteen years on an island, alone. He
cultivated a plot of ground, and sold the produce to the boats which
floated about. Several times robbed of his crops and clothing, by these
contemptible spoilers, he, at last, was compelled to renounce his rude
independence. In King's Island, families sat down; but Colonel Arthur,
sensible of the great danger of these associations, sent the harbour
master to the Straits, who arrested absconders, and released native
women from slavery.

By these men, the black women and female children were captured in
excursions to this island, and were liable to the ill-treatment, which
might be expected from men who regarded them with passion and contempt.
They were employed as slaves on some islands, to strip the mutton bird,
and in whatever irksome labor was within their capacity. It is said that
one man (Harrison), had fourteen women in his service, whom he flogged
with military severity, and some of whom he put to death.

Boatswain, an aged woman, stolen in her youth, related the manner of her
abduction. She was induced to enter a boat, without suspicion of the
design, when her captors rowed away, and confined her on an island in
the Straits. She told her treatment, in broken English and expressive
pantomime; first spreading forth her hands, as if fastened to the wall;
then, with loud cries, gradually becoming fainter, she fell down into a
pretended swoon: thus describing the mode and severity of her torture.

These men acquired an extraordinary dominion over th