secure the three natives
who had been digging up the potatoes, and particularly the man
who threw the fiz-gig; but not to fire on them, unless they made
use of their spears or other offensive weapons.

Governor Phillip, accompanied by two or three officers,
followed the party to a place where the natives had retired and
made a fire; at which, the serjeant, who arrived there a few
minutes before, found two men, one of whom he laid hold of, and
the other was seized by the surgeon's mate of the Sirius, who
went with the party, as he knew the men they were in search of:
both these men, however, got away; and a club, which at first was
taken for a spear, being thrown by one of them, three musquets
were fired. Two women and a child were found at the fire, but as
it was then dark, it was in vain to look for the two men, though
one of them was supposed to be wounded. The women were brought
away, together with several sticks, which the natives use for
digging roots, and some other articles, in order to learn more
fully who were the aggressors.

The women, though alarmed at first, yet, when they got to
Governor Phillip's house, appeared under no concern, but slept
that night in a shed in the yard, as much at their ease as if
nothing had happened; though it was impossible for them to know
that the men fired at were not killed; and one of them was
husband to one of the women: the other woman was she who had been
left at the governor's house, when her husband took away a former
wife.

The fiz-gig, which had been thrown at the man in the garden,
being shown to these women, they said it belonged to a native who
has already been noticed as a daring fellow; indeed he was so
much so, that though Governor Phillip thought it necessary to
watch for an opportunity of checking his insolence, he could not
but admire his spirit. Some bread and fish being given to the
women the next morning, they went away, well pleased with their
reception.

On the 29th of December, Bannelong made his appearance at
Governor Phillip's house, after an absence of ten days, and
brought his wife with him: he said he had been with a great
number of the Cameragals, and they had drawn the front tooth from
several young men, and had raised those scars which the natives
regard as ornaments. The largest of these scars are made by
cutting two lines through the skin, parallel to each other, with
a sharp shell, and afterwards stripping off the intermediate
skin: thi