nately sustained on the part of the
natives. It was remarked, however, that not one of the watchmen had
received the slightest injury, a circumstance that threw a shade over
their story, which, but for the production of the head, would have been
altogether disbelieved.

Whatever might have been the truth, it is certain that a party of natives
appeared the following day about the corn grounds, but conducted
themselves with a great deal of caution, stationing one of their party
upon the stump of a tree which commanded an extensive view of the
cultivated grounds, and retreating the instant they perceived themselves
to be observed.

From the quantities of husks and leaves of corn which were found
scattered about the dwelling places of these people, their depredations
this season must have been very extensive.

At Sydney a large party of natives assembled for the purpose of burning
the body of Carradah, the native mentioned in the transactions of the
month of December last, by the name of Midjer Bool. He had been put to
death while asleep in the night by some people who were inimical to his
tribe; and the natives who witnessed the performance of the last rite
assured us, that when the murderers should be discovered several severe
contests would ensue. It was at this time that the rencounter between
Collins and Wyatt took place; and some other points of honour which
remained unsettled were then determined, not without much violence and
bloodshed, though no one was killed.

Cropping the ground with wheat formed the general and most material
labour of this month. On the public account nearly four hundred acres were
so sown with that essential grain. At this time wheat bore the price of
twenty shillings a bushel.

The crops of Indian corn in general turned out very productive. An
officer who held an allotment of an hundred acres near Parramatta, from
each acre of nineteen, on a light sandy soil, gathered fifty bushels of
shelled corn; and a patch of Caffre corn, growing in the like soil,
produced the same quantity per acre. This grain had been introduced into
our settlement from the Cape of Good Hope by Captain Paterson, and was
found to answer well for fattening of stock. No one having attempted to
separate the farinaceous part of the grain from the husk, which was of an
astringent quality, no judgment had been formed of its utility as a
flour; but some who had ground it and mixed the whole together into a
paste pronounce