Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/344

 326 injuring each other by rivalry, have joined for the season, and have caught two whales within the week. A few shares have been sold in the Fremantle company at £50, being originally only 20 shares.—On Tuesday intelligence was received by the Government of a most daring attempt on the part of the natives at the settlement of Mr. Waylen, in Toodyay valley. Mr. Waylen and two soldiers stationed there had been absent from the place for a time, leaving it in charge of two men. In the meantime some natives of the same party that had murdered the two settlers, came to the hut and asked for wheat and got it, and next day thinking (perhaps) that there were only two men still in the hut, they came about in large numbers, and five of them forced their way into the hut, and, after awhile, made a rush upon the soldiers, and Mr. Waylen, who had only arrived shortly before, overpowered them, and had them down on the ground. In this awkward predicament, one of the soldiers managed to get hold of one of Mr. Waylen's pistols and shot one of the natives through the head; then a second; then Mr. Waylen got hold of an axe and cut another down. The two others then made off, but the soldiers now being able to get their muskets, shot one and wounded another; so here were four dead and one wounded in a trice. I have no doubt all in the hut would have been murdered if Providence had not favoured them, as two of the white men (the servants) were so paralysed that they did worse than nothing, for they crept away. The hut was so low and small that the natives could neither get their spears in, nor the soldiers use their arms properly. The next night another party of soldiers, under Lieut. Bunbury, shot one and wounded another, near the same place; so they are beginning to feel our vengeance. Mr. Bunbury and the soldiers were obliged to take off their shoes and creep for nearly a mile up a hill, over sharp stones and rocks, in order to come at these men, and, singular to say, a native of that district was their guide. I have put into the newspapers all the particulars of the murder of the two settlers