This man joined the party without the least fear; and from the questions that were put to him respecting the river, Colebe and Ballederry concluded they had come this journey in order to procure stone hatchets, as the natives get the stones whereof they make their hatchets from that part of the river near Richmond-Hill, which the old man said was a great way off, and the road to it was very bad.
Colebe and Ballederry had at first supposed, that Governor Phillip and his party came from the settlement to kill ducks and patagorongs; but finding they did not stop at the places where those animals were seen in any numbers, they were at a loss to know why the journey was taken; and though they had hitherto behaved exceedingly well, yet, as they now began to be tired of a journey, which yielded them no sort of advantage, they endeavoured to persuade the governor to return, saying, it was a great way to the place where the stone hatchets were to be procured, and that they must come in a boat.
On the party leaving this place, the old native returned to his canoe, but he joined them soon afterwards, and gave Governor Phillip two stone hatchets, two spears, and a throwing-stick: this present was made in consequence of our two natives telling him who all the party were. In return for the old man's present, he had some bread, some fish-hooks, and a couple of small hatchets given him. The spears were well made; one of them had a single barb of wood fixed on with gum, the other had two large barbs cut out of the solid wood, and it was as finely brought to a point as if it had been made with the sharpest instrument. The throwing-stick had a piece of hard stone fixed in gum instead of the shell which is commonly used by the natives who live on the sea coast: it is with these stones, which they bring to a very sharp edge, that the natives make their spears.
The old native followed our party in his canoe as they kept along the banks of the river, and another canoe, with a woman and child, joined him: the old man observing that they did not keep near enough the water's edge to have the least fatigue in walking, came out of his canoe and took the lead, and he soon brought them to a path made by the natives, where it was very good walking, and which ran alongside the river. It was near four o'clock when they stopped for the night, and were joined by a young man and a lively little boy, who they soon found intended, as well as the old man, to take up their residence with them, though their families were on the opposite bank, and they had two fires lighted.
Though our natives appeared to be on very friendly terms with their new acquaintances, yet they certainly had no particular affection for them, and spoke of them very lightly when they were out of hearing; particularly Ballederry, who said the youngest man of the two was bad: his name was Yal-lah-mien-di; they supposed him to be the old man's son, and the child to be his grandson. The old man called himself Go-me-bee-re, and said the child's name was Jim-bah; they were of the tribe of Bu-ru-be-rong-al.
Colebe and Ballederry, in describing that tribe on the second day's journey, had called them climbers of trees, and men who lived by hunting; certainly, no persons can better deserve the appellation of climbers, if we may judge from what was seen of Go-me-bee-re, who, for a biscuit, in a very few minutes cut his notches in the bark of a tree and mounted it with surprising agility, though an old man. These notches are cut in the bark little more than an inch deep, which receives the ball of the great toe; the first and second notches are cut from the ground; the rest they cut as they ascend, and at such a distance from each other, that when both their feet are in the notches, the right foot is raised nearly as high as the middle of the left thigh: when they are going to raise themselves a step, their hatchet is held in the mouth, in order to have the use of both their hands; and, when cutting the notch, the weight of the body rests on the ball of the great toe: the fingers of the left hand are also fixed in a notch cut on the side of the tree for that purpose, if it is too large to admit their clasping it sufficiently with the left arm to keep the body close to the tree.
In this manner do these people climb trees, whose circumference is ten or fifteen feet, or upwards, after an opossum or a squirrel, though they rise to the height of sixty or eighty feet before there is a single branch.
Governor Phillip had occasionally seen a few of the natives climb the trees at Sydney and Rose-Hill, but this old man greatly surpassed them. In the evening, the four natives and the child took their places at the fire, and a scene ensued which shows that these people are not a little superstitious.
Colebe had been wounded below the left breast with a fiz-gig, and though it must have been done many years back, or the wound must have been slight, as it was difficult to discover any scar, yet it was supposed he felt some pain, though it probably might be occasioned by the straps of his knapsack; however, the youngest of the two strangers was applied to for relief.
He began the ceremony by taking a mouthful of water, which he squirted on the part affected, and then applying his mouth, he began to suck as long as he could without taking breath; this seemed to make him sick, and when he rose up, (for his patient was sitting on the ground) he walked about for a few minutes, and then began to suck again, till it was again necessary for him to take breath: this was repeated three times, and he seemed, by drawing in his stomach, to feel the pain he had drawn from the breast of his patient; and having picked up a bit of stick or stone, which he did with so little caution that several of the party saw him, he pretended to take something out of his mouth and throw it into the river. He certainly did throw something away, which must be what he picked up; but Colebe, after the ceremony was over, said it was what he had sucked from his breast, which some understood to be two barbs of a fiz-gig, as he made use of the word Bul-ler-doo-ul; but Governor Phillip was of opinion he meant two pains.