me with as much curiosity as
might have been expected, from which I conjectured that white men were
not unknown to them.

After a meal of fish and wild duck, together with a pasty kind of bread
made from the bulrush root, which I found palatable, I was permitted to
lie down in one of their gunyahs upon a bed of freshly-picked leaves,
where, in spite of my anxieties, I soon fell asleep.

Toward morning I awoke to a full conviction of my sorry plight. The
camp was in darkness, save for the glow of the fires and the light of
the stars, which shine with a wonderful brilliancy in these southern
skies. The cry of some night bird came from the bush beyond the camp.
All else was still, but a crouching form at the entrance to the gunyah
warned me I was a prisoner. There was no need, however, to set a guard
upon me, for without a guide I knew I could never reach the coast, so
that even if I succeeded in making my escape from the savages, I must
perish miserably in the bush.

My thoughts now turned to home and friends whom it seemed unlikely I
would ever meet again. Dirk Hartog and the crew of the "Endraght",
though rough as became the hardy lives they led, had always shown a
kindly disposition toward me. They would miss me, and speak of me
perhaps, until, in the changing events of their adventurous career, I
would be forgotten. My parents also would mourn me as dead. But there
was one at Urk who would miss me more than friends or parents; Anna
Holstein, to whom I had plighted my troth, and to whom I looked to be
wed on my return. Anna was above me in station as the world goes. Her
father was the Governor of Urk, who would not willingly give his
daughter in marriage to a poor lad such its I. But who in love is wise?
Who reckons worldly wealth when love, the spirit and spring of the
universe, awakens in the soul? Like birds who call their mates with
love-learned songs, Anna and I loved each other, so that nothing bid,
death could part us. I had promised Anna I would return rich from my
voyage as others had done, when her father might be the more inclined
to look with favour upon my suit. Well--here was the and of my
promises, and my hopes--death, or, still worse, life among a savage and
barbarous people.

CHAPTER II

THE BLACK CANNIBALS OF NEW HOLLAND

On the morning after my capture by the black cannibals of New Holland,
at daybreak, I was driven, out of the gunyah in which I had passed the
night, to be looked at by