Among their other superstitions was one which might be naturally expected from their ignorance, a belief in spirits.

Of this belief we had at different times several accounts. Bennillong, during his first acquaintance with us, described an apparition as advancing to a person with an uncommon noise, and seizing hold of him by the throat. It came slowly along with its body bent, and the hands held together in a line with the face, moving on till it seized the party it meant to visit. We were told by him and others, and that after we understood each other, that by sleeping at the grave of a deceased person, they would, from what happened to them there, be freed from all future apprehensions respecting apparitions; for during that awful sleep the spirit of the deceased would visit them, seize them by the throat, and, opening them, take out their bowels, which they would replace and close up the wound. We understood that very few chose to encounter the darkness of the night, the solemnity of the grave, and the visitation of the spirit of the deceased; but that such as were so hardy became immediately car-rah-dys, and that all those who exercised that profession had gone through this ceremony.

It is very certain, that even in the day-time they were strangely unwilling to pass a grave; but I believe that their tale of being seized by the throat by a ghost was nothing more than their having felt the effects of what we term the night-mare during an uneasy sleep.

To the shooting of a star they attach a degree of importance; and I once, on an occasion of this kind, saw the girl Boo-roong greatly agitated, and prophesying much evil to befal all the white men and their habitations.

Of thunder and lightning they are also much afraid; but have an ideal that by chanting some particular words, and breathing hard, they can dispel it. Instances of this have been seen.

APPENDIX VIII--DISEASES

Their living chiefly on fish (I speak of those whom we found on the sea coast) produces a disorder which greatly resembles the itch; they term it Djee-ball djee-ball; and at one time, about the year 1791, there was not one of the natives, man, woman, nor child, that came near us, but was covered with it. It raged violently among them, and some became very loathsome objects.

The venereal disease also had got among them; but I fear our people have to answer for that; for though I believe none of our women had connection with then, yet there is no doubt but that several of the black women had not scrupled to connect themselves with the white men. Of the certainty of this an extraordinary instance occurred. A native woman had a child by one of our people. On its coming into the world she perceived a difference in its colour; for which not knowing how to account, she endeavoured to supply by art what she found deficient in nature, and actually held the poor babe, repeatedly, over the smoke of her fire, and rubbed its little body with ashes and dirt, to restore it to the hue with which her other children had been born. Her husband appeared as fond of it as if it had borne the undoubted sign of being his own, at least so far as complexion could ascertain to whom it belonged. Whether the mother had made use of any address on the occasion, I never learned.

It was by no means ascertained whether the lues venerea had been among them before they knew us, or whether our people had to answer for having introduced that devouring plague. Thus far is certain, however, that they gave it a name, Goo-bah-rong; a circumstance that seems rather to imply a pre-knowledge of its dreadful effects.

In the year 1789 they were visited by a disorder which raged among them with all the appearance and virulence of the small-pox. The number that it swept off, by their own accounts, was incredible. At that time a native was living with us; and on our taking him down to the harbour to look for his former companions, those who witnessed his expression and agony can never forget either. He looked anxiously around him in the different coves we visited; not a vestige on the sand was to be found of human foot; the excavations in the rocks were filled with the putrid bodies of those who had fallen victims to the disorder; not a living person was any where to be met with. It seemed as if, flying from the contagion, they had left the dead to bury the dead. He lifted up his hands and eyes in silent agony for some time; at last he exclaimed, 'All dead! all dead!' and then hung his head in mournful silence, which he preserved during the remainder of our excursion. Some days after he learned that the few of his companions who survived had fled up the harbour to avoid the pestilence that so dreadfully raged. His fate has been already mentioned. He fell a victim to his own humanity when Boo-roong, Nan-bar-ray, and others were brought into the town covered with the eruptions of the disorder. On visiting Broken Bay, we found that it had not confined its effects to Port Jackson, for in many places our path was covered with skeletons, and the same spectacles were to be met with in the hollows of most of the rocks of that harbour.