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276 the landing-place, and solemnly chanted Te Deum laudamus.

Whilst waiting for a boat, to take them up the river, the priests tried to make acquaintance with the many natives who were wandering about Fremantle. These looked hard at their unknown interlocutors, and merely vouchsafed the word Marannia to the foreigners' civility. Bethinking himself that in the Gallegon dialect a word of similar sound means deception, the good Salvado feared that even already the natives were distrustful of him, but on referring his doubts to his landlord, and learning from him that Marannia meant simply "victuals," our missionary immediately distributed bread, and wrote down the word in his pocket-book as the commencement of a vocabulary.

The beauty of the Swan appears to have made as much impression on him as on ourselves, for he says, "Each turn of the river presented a new scene, and a fresh occasion for praising God." but the arrival of himself and his friends at Perth was saddened by the death of one of the priests, who had never recovered the effects of a severe storm in the English Channel. A few days after the funeral the bishop held a council for the purpose of devising plans for the conversion of the natives, and, the opinion of each priest having been asked it was unanimously decided to follow them into the bush. Three companies were therefore formed, and named respectively the Missions of the North, of the South, and of the Centre of Western Australia. For their support the bishop requested grants of land from the colonial governor, who accordingly presented the South and Central Missions with twenty