Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/137

 119 levelled at him, three of which only went off—the contents of one unfortunately struck a man of our own party in the head, and killed him.

Principles of humanity prevented the slaughter of all the natives there; of whom one, however, was shot in the confusion. The spears, knives, and other weapons, with bags and cloaks were taken as legitimate booty. Some of their spears and knives are barbed or serrated with bits of glass, which must wound severely. Robertson tells us, in his History of America, that the natives of that country used "lances," whose heads were armed with flint.

16th.—All my pigs are missing. I greatly fear that the natives, who killed sixteen of them in my neighbourhood, have taken away or killed mine also. To add to my probable loss, one of my lambs has been so much torn by a native dog, that I have been obliged to kill it.

18th.—Yesterday, the Governor did me the honour of calling at my place: he informed me that a settler was killed by the natives on the Canning River, on the same day that the row occurred here.

23rd.—I closed my last letter only yesterday morning in Perth, to go by the Cornwallis, and have little to note in my diary of this or the three or four preceding days, unless the killing of a lamb (the first of my flock) for my dinner, be deemed worthy of a place in it.

26th.—This day I have been at Guildford, attending a meeting of settlers to take into consideration what is to be done about the natives, whose depredations are truly alarming and disheartening. The meeting was well attended, and strong resolutions were entered into expressive of the opinion that settlers must abandon the colony, if they be not protected in their property. I had the consolation of ascertaining, what before was only problematical, that my missing pigs were wounded in the bush by the natives. This, of course, made me sympathise with my fellow-sufferers, and