Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/91

 I turned inland towards the high conical forest-hill, on the range to the northward of Coohalli creek.

6th day.—We saw this morning the principal body of the Bellengen tribe of natives. Among the number were several blacks, who had been noticed, as foremost in the outrages upon the whites, already referred to. One man, in particular, had been pre-eminently remarkable from his tallness and herculean proportions; the sawyers up the Nambucca, had distinguished him by the name of "Cobbaun (big) Bellengen Jack."—I never saw a finer specimen of the Australian aborigines than this fellow; the symmetry of his limbs was faultless, and he would have made a splendid living model for the students of the Royal Academy. The haughty and dignified air of his strongly marked and not unhandsome countenance, the boldly developed muscles, the broad shoulders, and especially the great depth of his chest, reminded me of some antique torso. These blacks were quite ignorant of the jargon, which the stockmen and sawyers suppose to be the language of the natives, whilst they suppose it to be ours, and which is the ordinary medium of communication between the squatters and the "tame blackfellows." Bellengen Billy left us here to join the tribe; as he had been of some service to me from his knowledge of the brushy country north of the Bellengen, I presented him with an old red handkerchief, in which the tobacco had been tied up. Not having expected a