itude remembering, after the lapse of some years, the
attention which that gentleman had shown to her relative.

Having remained with them while the operation was performed on three or
four of the boys, I went into town, and returned after sun-set, when I
found the whole equipped and seated on the trunk of the tree, as
described in the Plate. It was then that I received the three teeth, and
was conjured by the women to leave the place, as they did not know what
might ensue. In fact, I observed the natives arming themselves; much
confusion and hurry was visible among them; the savage appeared to be
predominating; perhaps the blood they had drawn, and which was still wet
on the heads and breasts of many of them, began to make them fierce; and,
when I was on the point of retiring, the signal was given, which animated
the boys to the first exercise of the spirit which the business of the
day had infused into them, (for I have no doubt that their young bosoms
were warmed by the different ceremonies which they had witnessed, of
which they had indeed been something more than mere spectators, and which
they knew had been exhibited wholly on their account,) and they rushed
into the town in the manner before described, every where as they passed
along setting the grass on fire.

On showing the teeth to our medical gentleman there, and to others since
my return to England, they all declared that they could not have been
better extracted, had the proper instrument been used, instead of the
stone and piece of wood.

On a view of all these circumstances, I certainly should not consider
this ceremony in any other light than as a tribute, were I not obliged to
hesitate, by observing that all the people of Cam-mer-ray, which were
those who exacted the tooth, were themselves proofs that they had
submitted to the operation. I never saw one among them who had not lost
the front tooth. I well recollect Bennillong, in the early period of our
acquaintance with him and his language, telling us, as we then thought,
that a man of the name of Cam-mer-ra-gal wore all the teeth about his
neck. But we afterwards found that this term was only the distinguishing
title of the tribe which performed the ceremonies incident to the
operation. Bennillong at other times told us, that his own tooth was
bour-bil-liey pe-mul, buried in the earth, and that others were thrown
into the sea. It is certain, however, that my female friends, who gave me
the teeth, w