e absent digging roots.

HIS PLEADINGS FOR HIS SON.

The young native was seized hold of before he could attempt to escape,
and, as I told him if he now moved I should shoot him, he accompanied me
very quietly; the others meanwhile capering about and abusing one another
in the distance. Peerat however soon found out what had taken place and
came running after me. These natives are always ardently attached to
their children, and this the boy's father now evinced in the strongest
manner: he first of all declared that the boy had been asleep with him,
and that it was the mother only who had stolen; and he produced about a
dozen witnesses who all asserted that this was the case. I however
refuted this evidence by mentioning the fact of his footmarks being in
the garden. They then urged that Peerat's second wife had also been
engaged in the theft, and that she was just the size of the boy; this
however again was over-ruled from the fact of her footmarks having been
also seen there.

PEERAT'S SON SECURED.

The father now urged upon me the youth of the boy, and that he was under
the influence of the mother, and then fairly wept upon his child's neck,
who begged his father, and all the other natives by name, to save him. I
was now holding him by the wrist, for the feeling of the public began at
this affecting exhibition to turn against me, even my own natives urging
me to let the little fellow go; had I followed the dictates of my own
heart I should have done so, but I knew that by being in this instance
very determined I should effect eventually much good. I therefore held
fast by my prisoner. I now saw some of the other natives giving Peerat
spears, which is always a sign that they espouse a man's quarrel and
expect him to make use of the weapons they give him. As matters therefore
now were rather a serious aspect, I again told Peerat that I personally
had no cause of quarrel with him, but that I was resolved not to allow
either the natives to wrong the Europeans or the Europeans to wrong the
natives; that it was far better for the natives themselves that I, an
impartial person, should see that they were properly punished for theft,
than that the Europeans should fire indiscriminately upon them, as had
lately been done in another quarter; that I should now talk no more, but
that if he did not instantly take himself off and bring his wives in to
the settlement to be punished I would shoot him. He proceeded again to
answer