not being able to resist them. My legs had swelled very much, and I was
able to walk but a very short distance.

December 26.

The natives brought us a few pieces of fish and turtle, but both were
almost rotten; they also gave us a blue-tongued lizard, which I opened
and took out eleven young ones, which we roasted and ate. There was
nothing but scales on the old one, except in its tail.

We always equally divided whatever we got from the natives, be it what it
might; but they brought us very little that was eatable. I could easily
perceive that their pretended good feeling towards us was assumed for the
sake of fulfilling their own designs upon us. Although they tried to make
us believe they were doing all in their power to benefit us, their object
was to obtain an opportunity of coming upon us by surprise and destroying
us. They had at many times seen the fatal effects of our firearms, and I
believe that it was only the dread of these, that prevented them from
falling upon us at once, and murdering us. They were a much finer race of
men than the natives we had seen at Rockingham Bay, most of the men being
from five feet ten to six feet high. The general characteristics of the
race were different from those of the other aborigines I had ever seen,
and I imagined that they might be an admixture of the Australian tribes
and the Malays, or Murray Islanders. Some of them had large bushy
whiskers, with no hair on their chins or upper lips, having the
appearance of being regularly shaved. It would be almost impossible for
any class of men to excel these fellows in the scheming and versatile
cunning with which they strove to disguise their meditated treachery. In
fine weather I always had our firearms standing out for them to see, and
once or twice every night I fired off a pistol, to let them know we were
on the lookout by night as well as by day.

December 28.

Niblett and Wall both died this morning; Niblett was quite dead when I
got up, and Wall, though alive, was unable to speak; they were neither of
them up the day previous. I had been talking with them both, endeavouring
to encourage them to hope on to the last, but sickness, privation, and
fatigue had overcome them, and they abandoned themselves to a calm and
listless despair. We had got two pigeons the day before, which in the
evening were boiled and divided between us, as well as the water they
were boiled in. Niblett had eaten his pigeon, and drank the water,