red it nearly impossible to seize them in open
day.

An alarm would be given, that the blacks were approaching, and a party,
commissioned to repress them, would immediately advance; often
blundering and incautious, shouting, smoking, and straggling about;
carelessly firing their pieces, and affording abundant information of
their approach. Thus, after a fatiguing march, the natives, whom they
were sent out to meet, would be observed in their rear, having already
committed the premeditated depredation. Not that it was easy to elude
their observation, if they were conscious of pursuit, and it was nearly
impossible to overtake them.

Mr. Gilbert Robertson, after capturing Eumarrah, was twelve months
without success. One tribe he followed with pertinacity, were not far
off through the whole chase. Their fires were visible: they were, for
several days, on the hills, not more than four miles from the British;
but they "beat round and round, like a hare." A tribe, after a hot
pursuit, concealed their tracks, and suddenly vanished. They regularly
posted sentinels: passed over the most dangerous ground, and, on the
margin of fearful precipices: they would lie down beside a log--stone
dead, and could not be distinguished from the charred fragments of the
forest. Those who imagined that their eyes had never been averted, would
yet lose sight of the subtle enemy. They could not catch them, except by
stratagem; or, when they were caught, they could not hold them.[13] The
few captives that were obtained, when they thought proper, easily made
their escape. They confined them in a room: next morning, they had
passed through the flue into the open air, and freedom.

The extreme difficulty connected with their arrest by day, led to their
rapid destruction. The pursuers would watch, as the evening gathered in,
the thin smoke of the distant fires: they would cautiously advance, and
conceal themselves till midnight. The superstitious terror of the black,
prevented his wandering from the camp, lest the evil spirit that
haunted the darkness should carry him away. Thus, stretched around the
fire, the natives were easily seen, and musketry told with terrible
effect. Their dogs, instead of promoting their safety, sometimes led to
their sacrifice. A party, preparing to surround and capture them without
bloodshed, would move with quiet steps, without giving notice to the
aborigines; but just when all was prepared for the last movement, some
cur