escaping altogether, they would not have
been recognised even when they returned to their own homes. One day
Jacky Jacky's ship came into a little bay on the mainland for water, and
then my enterprising friend, watching his opportunity, struck inland for
home and liberty, accompanied by several other companions in misery.
These latter the coast natives promptly speared, but Jacky Jacky escaped,
thanks probably to his knowledge of the white man's wiles. He soon
reached the more friendly mountain tribes in the interior, where he was
received as a man and a brother. You see, he had stolen a revolver from
his late masters, and this mysterious weapon created great terror among
his new friends. Altogether he posed as quite a great man, particularly
when his story became known. He worked his way from tribe to tribe,
until at length he got to the ranges where I met him--quite a vast
distance from the coast.

Many parts of the extensive country I traversed on my southward journey,
after the death of the girls, were exceedingly rich in minerals, and
particularly in gold, both alluvial and in quartz. As I was making my
way one day through a granite country along the banks of a creek, I
beheld some reddish stones, which I at once pounced upon and found to be
beautiful rubies. Having no means of carrying them, however, and as they
were of no value whatever to me, I simply threw them away again, and now
merely record the fact. I also came across large quantities of alluvial
tin, but this, again, was not of the slightest use, any more than it had
been when I found it in very large quantities in the King Leopold Ranges.
The test I applied to see whether it really _was_ tin was to scratch it
with my knife. Even when large quantities of native gold lay at my feet,
I hardly stooped to pick it up, save as a matter of curiosity. Why
should I? What use was it to me? As I have stated over and over again
in public, I would have given all the gold for a few ounces of salt,
which I needed so sorely. Afterwards, however, I made use of the
precious metal in a very practical manner, but of this more hereafter. At
one place--probably near the Warburton Ranges in Western Australia--I
picked up an immense piece of quartz, which was so rich that it appeared
to be one mass of virgin gold; and when on showing it to Yamba I told her
that in my country men were prepared to go to any part of the world, and
undergo many terrible hardships to obt