Page:Some account of the wars, extirpation, habits.djvu/83

Rh There prevailed here at one time an universal belief that a man of our own race was living with the blacks, not only on terms of amity, but as the active abbetorabettor [sic] of, and instructor in their hostile operations against the colonists, This story which was only one of the many Munchausen-like inventions about the natives, with which public credulity was pretty well satiated at this time, originated with a mendacious witness, who told it to the Aboriginal Committee, of whom I have spoken before.

Information so startling, and yet so probable, when viewed connectedly with the many well matured devices of the blacks for surprising the settlers, which men of such low intelligence as they were erroneously believed to possess, received for a long time a too ready credence, and the Committee hastily accepting the intelligence as a most valuable addition to the evidence they had collected, commended the author, as I have been told, to the Government for a special reward, and which I believe he received. But M'Kay, who often related the report to different parties of natives, says they—one and all—gave the most unequivocal denial to it, and assured him there was not the smallest ground on which to base such an invention. But the story, as some will still remember, had gained such credit with the public, that it was nowhere doubted, and on one occasion it nearly cost M'Kay his life, through his being mistaken for the mythical "white man."

A military, but none too martial settler, had just so far completed a residence on a new location as to make it passably habitable for himself and wife; and in a placid mood of mind, such as steals over us when quite at peace with ourselves and the world, was making an ocular survey of this conception of his genius, in company with the partner of his cares and troubles, just as a tribe of natives, who approached it by the rear as stealthily as so many cats, had gotten possession of it by the back entry. Having satisfied himself by a minute examination of its front elevation, that everything was quite to his mind, he retraced his steps to take another look at the internal arrangements, but only to find every room occupied by a horde of stark naked blacks, more like demons than beings of this world, as wild as the winds of winter, and armed at all points either for attack or defence. According to their crude ideas of enjoyment, they were very pleasantly occupied in turning everything topsy-turvey, having a general rummage, and helping themselves to what they liked best.

At a scene so portentous as this, the captain very naturally