Page:Some account of the wars, extirpation, habits.djvu/68

60 He was, however, soon afterwards enabled to give proof of his powers to do as he liked with the natives, and to induce their surrender at his will, or pretty nearly so, now that his instructions permitted him to do so, of which he quickly availed himself.

He went again, unarmed as usual, amongst several confederated tribes living in the eastern districts of the colony, and soon induced 13 of their people to follow him into hopeless captivity, and located them for the present at a temporary asylum, formed at a place called Swan Island, lying off the north-east coast of Tasmania. He learned from his prisoners that they had just returned from an expedition, against others of this unfortunate race, over whom they had obtained a victory, if it may he so termed where only three of the vanquished were slain. Those tights often lasted for hours, but such was the dexterity of the savage in evading the spears of his adversaries that they seldom struck him. Without moving an inch from his post, he would avoid a discharge of three or four well-directed spears sent at him at the same instant. By a contortion of his body, a moveofmovement of [sic] his head to the right or left, or raising his leg or arm, he seldom failed escaping them all, any one of which would have transfixed the less agile European with the most perfect certainty.

He remained at Swan Island till the middle of the year 1831, organising his new establishment, roving amongst the many islands of Bass's Straits, quarrelling with their occupants, the sealers, about their women, and boring the Government as often as he could with letters filled with abuse of these men, and sickening details of their cruelties; about which I need say no more than I have already done, except that he would have their women, many of whom he took from them, but they also concealed many, whom he never got; after which he returned to his more proper calling of following the natives of the wilderness.

But during nearly the whole of the year 1831, his successes were inconsiderable. He pursued his prey with his accustomed ardour, but the natives avoided and constantly escaped from him; and the most he effected during the best part of that year was the partial disorganisation of some of the tribes, by the rather unexpected but fortunate capture of two or three of their chiefs.

But he was more fortunate just at the close of this year, and removed to Flinder's Island, on which the aboriginal establishment was now planted, the remains of two once powerful and still very sanguinary tribes, after such a series of marches and counter marches, of trials, hopes and disappointments, which he describes in lengthy detail, as it is quite wearying to wade through, the account of his meeting with them and their surrender being the only portions of two long-winded reports, dated