felf, and promifing amendment, as nothing but a love o f idlenefs
could be fixed upon him, was forgiven; and, being fupplied with a
mufquet and ammunition, he was allowed to accompany fuch parties
as made excurfions into the woods, and at other times to Ihoot
kangooroos and birds. B y him, the firft bird o f paradife ever feen
in this country had been fhot; and it was his cuftom to live upon
the flelh o f fuch birds as he killed, bringing in with him their
Ikins.
With the wood natives he had fufificient influence to perfuade
them that he had once been a black man, and pointed out a very
old woman as his mother, who was weak and credulous enough to
acknowledge him as her fon. The natives who inhabit the woods
are not by any means fo acute as thofe who live upon the fea coaft.
This difference may perhaps be accounted for by their fequeftered
• manner o f living, fociety contributing much to the exercife o f the
mental faculties. Wilfon prefumed upon this mental inability; and,
having impofed himfelf upon them as their countryman, and
created a fear and refpeCt o f his fuperior powers, indulged himfelf
in taking liberties with their young females. However deficient
they might be in reafoning faculties, he found to his coft that they
were fufceptible o f wrongs; for, having appropriated againft her
inclinations a female to his own exclufive accommodation, her
friends took an opportunity, when he was not in a condition to defend
himfelf, to drive a fpear through his body, which ended his
career for this time, and left them to expeCt his return at fame future
period in the fhape o f another white man.
B y a reference to the firft volume o f this work, it will be feen,
that the natives who inhabited Port Stephens, a harbour to the
northward o f the fettlement, entertained a fimilar idea o f four white
men who had been thrown by chance among them ; and Wilfon, having
heard the circumftance, endeavoured to avail himfelf o f it in his
intercourfe with the wood natives.
The natives o f the coaft, whenever fpeaking o f thofe of the interior,
conftantly expreffed themfelves with contempt and marks o f
difapprobation. Their language was unknown to each other, and
there was not any doubt of their living in a ftate of mutual diftruft
and enmity. Thofe natives, indeed, who frequented the town o f
Sydney, fpoke to and o f thofe who were notfo fortunate, in a very
fuperior tone, valuing themfelves upon their friendfhip with the
white people, and erecting in themfelves an exclufive right to the
enjoyment o f all the benefits which were to refult from that friend-
fhip. That they fhould prefer the fhelter which they found in the
houfes o f the inhabitants to the miferable protection from weather
which their ill-conftruCted huts afforded, or even to that which
they could meet with under a rock, will be allowed to have been
natural enough, when we prefent the reader with a V iew o f a man,
his wife, and child, actually fketched on the fpot, by a perfon
who met with them thus endeavouring to obtain fhelter under &
projedion o f a rock, during a heavy florin o f rain and wind.