he country, as well as in acquiring information of
a scientific nature, and I had attained such a knowledge of the language
of the natives as enabled me to form a vocabulary of the different
dialects spoken in these parts, which was printed and forwarded to
England at the close of the year.

My excursions into the country from Perth whilst awaiting the arrival and
fitting out of the Champion were necessarily short, but the journal of
one to the northward, made in company with my young friend Mr. Frederick
Smith, who afterwards fell a sacrifice in the expedition to Shark Bay,
will I think be interesting enough to be inserted here.

EXCURSION TO THE NORTH OF PERTH.

November 30.

Mr. Smith and myself started at noon this day, accompanied by Corporal
Auger and two natives, upon a trip in a northerly direction; about 5 P.M.
we reached a lake distant about fifteen miles from Perth, and called by
the natives Mooloore: we halted here for the night.

The horses were scarcely tethered and our fire made when four more
natives joined the party; their names were Noogongoo, Kurral, Jeebar, and
Dudemurry; they brought us a present of twenty-seven freshwater
tortoises, the average weight of each of which was half a pound. They
said that, although the lake was called Mooloore, the name of the land we
were sitting on was Doondalup.

STORY-TELLING.

As soon as supper was finished they became very talkative, and, in a sort
of recitative, recounted various adventures; and, when they conceived
that they had sufficiently entertained me, they requested me to give them
an account of my adventures in the northern part of the country, where
they had heard from other natives that I had been for some time.

Having now acquired some knowledge of their language, I was able to make
myself tolerably intelligible to them, and they listened with the
greatest anxiety and interest to the various misfortunes that befel me.
When they heard that I had been wounded by the natives to the north no
persuasions or protestations upon my part could convince them that my
object in now proceeding in that direction again was merely to gratify
curiosity, and not from motives of revenge; but they kept continually
requesting me not to attempt to kill anybody until I had passed a spot
named Yalgarrin, about ten days journey to the north, and they then
advised me indiscriminately to shoot everybody I saw; and were the more
urgent in pressing the adoption of this c