Page:The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal 2(79).djvu/3



learn that 6,000 barrels of flour, may be shortly expected to arrive from the United States of America, and cargoes of wheat from other quarters may also be looked for. The price to which this article has risen, viz., 10s per bushel, will induce our Southern neighbours to scrape a few thousand bushels together for our use, altho' it is known that their own supply is scanty. Our settlers must be wise in time however, and bear in mind that without foreign importation or great economy there will not be sufficient wheat in the Colony to last till the 1st October.—Australian, April 28.

of 25 weeks has elapsed since the date of our last intelligence from Europe, and it is much to be feared that the cause will prove to be a long-continuance of south-westerly gales in the channel, during the months of November and December last. Should this be the case, we must expect to hear the usual calamitous account of shipwrecks on the coast of Great Britain and Ireland.—Ibid.

.-It was some time since stated in the Calcutta Courier, that a party of gentlemen were about to proceed to King George's Sound, to establish a Colony. We find that they have now completed their arrangements, and depart on Sunday. The following are the names, as reported in the 'Bankshall Circular' of last night, in addition to which we learn that there are no less than fifty native emigrants:—List of pasengers per barque Mercury, bound to King George's Sound—James Calder, Esq., Captain C. Cowies, William Raynor, Esq., George Battle, Esq., Samuel Beadle, Esq, Thomas Nisbett, Esq., and Mr Austin—Madras Gazette.

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND NEWS.

was up yesterday to 12s. a bushel. The bakers who have difficulty in procuring flour meeting the boats of small settlers as they come up from Pittwater and the other settlements down the river, anxiously give almost any price, in order to procure a quantity to enable them not to disappoint their regular customers.—Hobart Town Courier.

.—Wheat has somewhat increased in price during the week, 8s., 9s., and 10., having been paid for it; however, the last quotation can not be considered the average price, it having been sold at that price only in particular cases, and in small quantities; flour from 19s. to 25s. per 100lbs.; barley, from 5s. to 5s. 6d. per bushel; oats, 3s 6d. to 4s. per bushel; hay, 7l. to 8l. per ton; bread, (Brickerton and Tibbs) 8d. per 4lb. loaf; other bakers, 9d. and 10d. per 41b. loaf; butchers' meat, 4d. to 6d. per lb.; pork, 8d.; fresh butter, 2s. to 2s. 3d. per lb.; candles, 9d. per lb.; sugar per ton, 34l.; per lb, 4d; tea per chest, 8l.; per lb., 3s. to 9s. 6d.; Cape wine per pipe, 15l.; per gallon, 4s.; rum in bond, 3s. per gallon; gin ditto, 5s. 6d.; brandy, 5s.; porter per hogshead, 5l. 15s.—Independent.

"A salutary regulation was in existence on my arrival at King. George's Sound forbidding the Natives taking their spears into the Settlement, yet this, although still enforced, did not prevent occasional squabbles and some skirmishing among themselves, and trivial irritations and misunderstandings with us. The origin of their own quarrels was difficult to be ascertained, but it was clearly seen they were quick and violent in resenting conceived insults from one another, and sufficiently sensible of maltreatment from us. Nor was the full appreciation of the value of our friendship enough to make them cover their temporary umbrage at supposed affronts, although it powerfully and soon operated to dispel the ill humour that had been engendered.

All ages and sexes were among our visitors, or perhaps with more propriety our posts, as we certainly had come into their country and set ourselves down at, if not in, their homes and upon their territories. The male part of the Natives extended their stay in the Settlement often till after dark, especially if biscuit and tea were held out to them to join in the native dance (Toortunggur), or, as it is more frequently called, Korroboré, from the Sydney name. The women almost invariably left before night-fall, and, with the old men and young children, chiefly occupied the more distant bivouac; whilst the young men and those who had left their families at a distance, betook themselves only to the adjoining grove.

The moral principle and christian injunction of honesty is rarely found to predominate in the savage breast, and the Aborigines of New Holland have never been quoted as an exception. It will only then be surprising that so few and trifling thefts should have been committed by the tribe when articles of food and other things highly useful to them were often improperly left open to their temptation. The grown-up natives took credit to themselves for never stealing, and certainly they were only young boys and lads who were detected; but they in laying the blame on the fuller grown for advising to the act, implicated them without clearing themselves, and shewed what credit was due to the former for their boasted honesty. The penalty for theft was expulsion from the Settlement.

One robbery more daring then the rest took place at the farm, and was perpetrated by one arrived at the years of discretion. The opportunity of two men who lived there being at work in the Settlement was seized, to attempt a buglary in their hut, but the actor was unskilled in his profession that he had wasted much time and trouble in removing the brass plate of the keyhole, and neglected to force the lock, which was very insecurely fastened. He had, however, succeeded in reaching and carrying off some peas without obtaining admission for more than his hand and arm. He visited and left the impression of his footsteps in the garden where he had pulled up some vegetables, but looked in vain for bulbous or tuberous roots, most probably the objects of his search, as at that time there were few or none in the ground. Mokkaré, whom I sent next day to examine the traces which remained, attributed the damage and the trespass to a man at the time in disgrace with the tribe, who was named Winnawar, or Erawarré. The suspicion was grounded on the very small footsteps corresponding to his very small foot, and that he lived in the neighbourhood of the farm. I desired Mokkaré to impress the natives with the manner in which we viewed such acts, and the punishment that awaited them in case of detection. This, however, did not prevent a similar attempt to procure food by pulling up vegetables in July by some other natives who were supposed to have committed the depredation in the night time by moonlight, when the gardeners were at home. My suspicion fell on Toolunggurtwallé, from the foot mark and from his being a companion of Winnawar. A musket was supplied to the head gardener, and I gave it out that he would in future shoot any black whom he should see in the garden, and this seemed to have the desired effect, as no more attempts at similar depredations were made for some time. In the fine weather of May one of the settlers, employed, for several days, a number of the natives bringing in spars from Mount Melville at the cheap rate of the value of a meal or two of rice and sugar and tea. They were perfectly satisfied with their hire, and originated the hope that they might be made constantly available for such labour; but a very few days undeceived us; for, on the 24th of May, after some rain had fallen, and in the commencement of Mokkar, (winter, or the rainy season,) and after holding, of their own free will and pleasure, without reward, emolument or countenance, a very grand korrobaré in the Settlement, they took their departure from the coast, and even to a boy proceeded inland for the purpose of spearing kangaroo—the season for that species of hunting commencing at that time. Mokkaré asked and obtained leave to accompany his fellow countrymen for two or three days, but did not return for twelve or fourteen, and excused his breach of promise which I shewed him was improper, by adducing the entreaties of the other natives to remain with them—entreaties which, in every probability, were strongly backed by his success in killing kangaroo, and consequent abundance of a favourite food; for, although the stated meals of biscuit, beef, (salt,) cabbage and rice with tea may be very acceptable to the uncultivated palates of the savage, still there can be no marvel excited by the wish to gratify their old habits by gorging on fresh kangaroo.

One of the most usual plans of catching kangaroo in the winter, is, for a few to search the grassy and rushy hollows, proceeding along them in a direction contrary to the wind, (and a high wind is the most favourable,) approaching under cover of the bushes, carefully avoiding the smallest noise, and when near their prey, keeping behind it, stooping in their advance, and remaining fixed in their position immediately the animal betrays any symptom of alarm, and resuming their advance as soon as it renews its feeding or other motions indicative of its suspicion being removed, till either quite close or very near it, when it is the only motion to throw or thrust the spear, and if close, grasp the head, which is instantly beaten with a quoit (or tomahawk) until the animal is the assured victim of the spearsman. Or, if less fortunate in the close approach, throwing the spear with as unerring aim as the huntsman is master of, and pursuing the wounded animal with his utmost speed, in which he is joined or altogether superseded by others who have hitherto remained at some distance, anxious spectators of the good or bad fortune of the lethal weapon. When thus employed, they disentangle themselves of their cloaks, heedless, as would seem, of the spot where they drop them. Their practised acuteness in tracing the chase when far out of sight and in retracing their steps to the point of departure, often assure the obtaining of their prey that would otherwise be lost, and guarantee them against the loss of any deposits, cloaks &c for example. There are, probably, many reasons why they select the winter, the rainy and windy season for hunting the kangaroo. It is likely that in stormy weather the animals lie closer than in fine. They are less likely amidst the howling of the tempest to hear any inferior noise; in the pursuit the wet grass and moist surface present so slippery a footing that they cannot bound in running with the same effect were the ground dry and firm. Their tracts too can be more easily perceived by the grass and shrubs shaken of their watery drops. Kangaroos are also obtained by the Natives in great numbers by enclosing or encircling a tract of ground frequented by these animals, and gradually contracting the enclosure or circle, driving all before them until so closely beset that they make a rush to escape between the enclosures, and are speared as they approach. Snares and traps are also employed perhaps at different seasons. The first, that of digging deep oblong holes in the form of a grave but much narrower, and which by some explorers have been taken for places of internment, in the tracts frequented by kangaroos, wallabés, and such like animals, covering this over with sticks, bushes and grass, so as to make it resemble the other pans of the surface, and preventing the animals suspecting any injury until treading upon them, they fall in, and from the depth and lateral confinement being unable to extricate themselves, are found either dead or alive by the hunter on his revisiting his Narrungékurr (the native name of these pits.) The making the kangaroo jump upon pointed stakes is another method of capture. In the banks of a stream at the customary crossing place of kangaroos there is a fixed row of stakes, a little stronger than spears, very finely pointed and smeared with a very thin coating of the resin of the glass tree, their sharpened ends directed at an angle of about 50. with the horizon to the opposite bank, where there is a similar row of the same offensive weapons opposing the former in their inclination. The native name for this trap is Moglye. Where the meeting of streams forms grassy isthmuses these traps are numerous as upon the Napice at Kooianip. Here the stakes were five on one side, and three on the other, at an angle of 55.; the points opposite rows of 18 inches apart: their length 4½ feet, nine inches or a foot being stuck in the ground. But whether the kangaroos impale themselves from time to time through ignorance without being driven to it by their pursuers, or whether it is only in the heat and hurry of escape when closely pursued, or at any particular season, I have not yet learned.

,—As a subject commanding the interests of the communities of Eastern and Western Australia, I solicit the publication, in your columns, of the underwritten copies of a communication with this Government, and the subsequently written Remarks:—