HE TWO TOMMIES.

The two Tommies still remained to be provided for, and they were both
desirous of accompanying me to England. I had seriously intended to take
one with me but, so docile and so much attached to my service were both
of these youths, that I felt much difficulty in choosing between them.
Meanwhile they remained at Sydney while official cares and troubles so
thickened about me that I at length abandoned my intention, however
reluctantly and, when they were about to return at last to their own
country, I gave to each what clothes I could spare and they both shed
tears when they left my house. They were to travel through the colony
under the protection of Charles Hammond, one of my steadiest men who,
having obtained his freedom in reward for his services with me, was
proceeding towards Bathurst in charge of the teams of a Parcel Delivery
Company.

BALLANDELLA.

The little Ballandella, child of The Widow, was a welcome stranger to my
children among whom she remained and seemed to adopt the habits of
domestic life con amore, evincing a degree of aptness which promised very
favourably. The great expense of the passage home of a large family
obliged me at last to leave her at Sydney under the care of my friend Dr.
Nicholson who kindly undertook the superintendence of her education
during my absence in England.

CHARACTER OF THE NATIVES OF THE INTERIOR.

My experience enables me to speak in the most favourable terms of the
aborigines whose degraded position in the midst of the white population
affords no just criterion of their merits. The quickness of apprehension
of those in the interior was very remarkable, for nothing in all the
complicated adaptations we carried with us either surprised or puzzled
them. They are never awkward, on the contrary in manners and general
intelligence they appear superior to any class of white rustics that I
have seen.

LANGUAGE.

Their powers of mimicry seem extraordinary, and their shrewdness shines
even through the medium of imperfect language and renders them in general
very agreeable companions.

On comparing a vocabulary of the language spoken by the natives on the
Darling with other vocabularies obtained by various persons on different
parts of the coast I found a striking similarity in eight words, and it
appears singular that all these words should apply to different parts of
the human body. I could discover no term in equally general use for any
other object as