Page:Last of the tasmanians.djvu/134

Rh a blow. In a few words the unhappy man moaned forth his story. He had received a spear in his breast, while endeavouring to get away from a mob. This after some difficulty he extracted, and ran on again. Another pierced his back, and broke short off in the wound. Sickening with pain, his step faltered, and the savages reached him. Several spears were thrust into him, and waddies played heavily about his head. He was left for dead. Reviving, he made an effort to reach some settlement, and so fell in with the party. Upon further conversation, the rescuers were horrified at discovering that the attack had taken place three days before; the time accounted for the dreadful condition of his wounds. He was conveyed to the hospital, but death soon released him from suffering.

One Josiah Gough lived with his wife and two girls in a part of the interior. Becoming alarmed for the safety of his family, he went off to the town to procure assistance to remove them to a place of safety. While away, the Natives stole down the chimney into the hut, speared, and then brained, the poor woman, and cruelly waddied the children. Taking what they desired, the murderers withdrew. The father soon after arrived, and heard the sad tale from the dying lips of his surviving girl. We cannot be surprised at some fearful retaliation by the neighbours. In 1827, a farmhouse was attacked, under similar circumstances, when the master had gone for a military party. The wife, daughter, two sons, a servant, and a traveller, were in the hut when the barbarians surrounded it with their mad cries for blood. The armed inmates defended themselves with much courage and coolness; the conduct of one of the boys was quite heroic. The contest continued for some time, when the enraged Blacks set fire to the thatch of the roof, to drive out the family, that they might be more readily and certainly destroyed. At this critical period, a dozen soldiers appeared through the forest, and soon put the tribe to flight. So rancorous was the hatred of the Natives against the Whites, that every expedient was adopted to carry out their malevolent purpose, and torments were used with almost an Indian refinement of cruelty. In the early days, as the men, the servants especially, only wore a sort of moccasin of kangaroo skin, sharp stones and pointed burnt sticks were set up into paths known to be passed, so as to pierce the feet. The most