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58 the colonists, who believed him be nothing but a plausible charlatan. He despised their taunts, and replied not a word to one of them.

Several months of apparent inaction, but of real preparation, then followed, and it was not before May of 1830 that he set out again with 18 others, 10 of whom were blacks, to confer with the enemy.

Landing at a place on the South Coast, called Recherche Bay, from an open boat, so leaky that it was with the last difficulty he kept her from sinking with her living freight (all thanks to official red-tapeism), he at once pushed over to a further point called Spring River, from which he started inland with his blacks and three Europeans, the rest remaining with the boat. From here he proceeded cross-country to Port Davey, traversing a mountainous, difficult, and heavily-wooded tract, and reached the great open country beyond, about the 17th of May. This part of Tasmania was then, and still is, a perfect alpine solitude, and he saw not the trace of man till he reached the last-named place. "Here," he says, "a numerous band of natives appeared in sight. On observing my people they fled, setting the heath on fire as they went along." He was anxious to confer with them, but the suspicious savages evaded the desired interview. Sending forward some of his blacks who spoke the dialect of the South Coast tribes, they overtook them, and explained the object of this unexpected intrusion on lands that had never been visited by a white man before, and very seldom since, the coast line alone being known then. Their mission was greatly facilitated by one of the women being related to the stranger blacks, and a long-lost brother of hers was found amongst them. The tribe consented to receive Robinson, and the next day was fixed on for his first interview with the wild aboriginal man of the country; the meeting to take place at a point amongst the mountains, about three miles from his tent. Here he went accordingly with his natives and three armed Europeans. The appearance of the latter with their muskets at once excited their suspicions that his mission was not of the pacific nature they expected, and they broke up and left before he could reach them. From this time he determined never again to go amongst them with arms of any sort, and if possible only with his blacks.

Nothing daunted by this failure, he sent after them again, and his black ambassadors once more succeeded in arranging for an interview, and his first meeting with them took place on the 21st. "The object of my mission," he says, "I fully explained to them, with which they appeared highly pleased. With this people I sojourned for about three weeks, travelling with, and