Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/125

1832.] words in broken English, of the manner in which these men flogged the women who did not pluck Mutton-birds, or do other work to their satisfaction. She spread her hands to the wall, to shew the manner in which they were tied up, said a rope was used to flog them with, and cried out with a failing voice till she sank upon the ground, as if exhausted. The statements of this woman were confirmed by others, several of whom have escaped to the settlement. A M'Lachlan fell in with Boatswain and a New Holland woman, when they had been left on a distant part of the island to hunt, and they gladly availed themselves of the opportunity to obtain their liberty. The sealers got them back by false pretences, but Boatswain was afterwards found early in the morning, by the Commandant, on Guncarriage Island, where she stated, that herself and another woman were hid by the sealers, at a former time when one of these men assured him they were not there. The cutter's boat happened to go to Green Island about a year since, when two women, called Isaac and Judy, took the opportunity of escaping by it, while the sealers were asleep.—Two other women waded and swam from Green Island to the Settlement—a distance of three miles. Most of these women were originally kidnapped. Boatswain says, she got into a boat when a girl, and the sealers rowed away with her. These men teach the women to manage their boats, and often give them names ordinarily belonging the male sex—a circumstance small in itself, but connected with reckless depravity.

15th. Old Boatswain having understood that we wished to taste the inner portion of the upper part of the stem of the tree-fern, which is used by the natives as an article of diet, went several miles for some. It is in substance like a Swedish-turnip, but is too astringent in taste to be agreeable, and it is not much altered by cooking. They also use the root of Pteris esculenta—a fern, much like the common Brake of England, which they call Tara—a name given to other esculent roots, and to rice in the southern hemisphere. In hunting to-day, the people took several Wallabies, Porcupines, and Kangaroo-rats. The Porcupine of this land, Echnida Hystrix, is a squat species of ant-eater, with short