stern coast of the continent in due time, avoiding the Roper River
altogether.

Yamba knelt by my side and tried to comfort me in her own sweet, quaint
way, and she pictured to me--scant consolation--how glad her people would
be to have us both back amongst them once more. She also urged what a
great man I might be among her people if only I would stay and make my
home with them. Even her voice, however, fell dully on my ears, for I
was fairly mad with rage and despair--with myself, for not having gone
overland to Port Darwin from Port Essington, as, indeed, I should most
certainly have done were it not that Davis had assured me the greater
part of the journey lay through deadly swamps and creeks, and great
waters swarming with alligators. I had even had in my mind the idea of
attempting to _reach Sydney overland_! but thought I would first of all
see what facilities in the way of reaching civilisation Port Darwin had
to offer. Now, however, I was back again in Cambridge Gulf,--in the very
spot I had left a year and a half ago, and where I had landed with my
four blacks from the island sand-spit. But you, my readers, shall judge
of my feelings.

We landed on an island at the mouth of the gulf, and Yamba made smoke-
signals to her friends on the mainland, telling them of our return. We
resolved it would never do to confess we had been _driven back_. No, we
had roamed about and had come back to our dear friends of our own free-
will, feeling there was no place like home! just think what a _role_ this
was for me to play,--with my whole being thrilling with an agony of
helpless rage and bitter disappointment.

This time, however, we did not wait for the blacks to come out and meet
us, but paddled straight for the beach, where the chiefs and all the
tribe were assembled in readiness to receive us. The first poignant
anguish being passed, and the warmth of welcome being so cordial and
excessive (they cried with joy), I began to feel a little easier in my
mind and more resigned to inexorable fate. The usual ceremony of nose-
rubbing on shoulders was gone through, and almost every native present
expressed his or her individual delight at seeing us again. Then they
besieged us with questions, for we were now great travellers. A spacious
"humpy" or hut was built without delay, and the blacks vied with one
another in bringing me things which I sorely needed, such as fish,
turtles, roots, and eggs.

That evening a _c