Shortly before we crossed the Great Piper River a party of convicts had run away with a fishing boat. Although only three in number they made the fishermen take them to Banks Strait, where they forced a party of sealers to pass them over to Wilson's Promontory. Notwithstanding they were several weeks on the passage, waiting for fine weather at the different islands (the sealers, too, being twice their number) such was their vigilance that they never allowed them a chance of escape. These men were afterwards seen near Sydney.

CONVICTS' STORY.

The most remarkable coast-feature, between Waterhouse Island and the Tamar, is Stony Head, a bluff three hundred feet high,* lying twelve miles from Port Dalrymple. A small sandy bay separates it from a point to the westward, and it is the nearest part of the main to Tenth Island. In the neighbourhood of this headland I was induced to enter a hut at a sheep-station, by seeing stuck round a fence a number of the heads of an animal called by the colonists a hyena, from the resemblance it bears in shape and colour, though not in ferocity, to that beast.** My object was to obtain a few of these heads, which the hut-keeper, who was the only inmate, instantly gave, along with an unsolicited history of his own life. In the early part we instantly discovered that this loquacious personage was, what he afterwards mildly confessed to be, a government man, in other words a convict, sent out of course, according to the usual story, through mistake. It appears that he had been a drover, and that a few beasts were one morning found (quite by accident) among a herd he was driving through the West of England. He had spent the early part of his servitude at Circular Head, where he was for some time in charge of the native woman caught stealing flour at a shepherd's hut, belonging to the Van Diemen's Land Agricultural Company--a fact mentioned in a former chapter.***

(*Footnote. Of basaltic formation; whilst the rocks that prevail to the eastward are of primary character. But as Strzelecki has written so largely on the geology of Tasmania, it will be needless for me to enter further into the subject, except to say, that the raised beaches found on the western side of Flinders, are evidences of an upheaval having recently taken place.)

(**Footnote. This is the only animal the Tasmanian sheep-farmer is annoyed with; and from its paucity, they have not, as in New South Wales, the trouble of securing their flocks in yards or folds every night.)

(***Footnote. See Volume 1.)

INHUMAN CONDUCT.

I was curious to know how he managed to procure the obedience of this aboriginal victim; and the inhuman wretch confessed, without a blush--which must rise instead to the cheeks of my readers, when they hear of what barbarities their countrymen have been guilty--that he kept the poor creature chained up like a wild beast; and whenever he wanted her to do anything, applied a burning stick, a fire-brand snatched from the hearth, to her skin! This was enough. I could listen to no more, and hurried from the spot, leaving my brutal informant to guess at the cause of my abrupt departure. It is possible that the emotion I allowed to appear may have introduced some glimmering of the truth into his mind, that he may have faintly perceived how disgusted I was with his narrative; but such is the perversion of feeling among a portion of the colonists, that they cannot conceive how anyone can sympathize with the black race as their fellow men. In theory and practice they regard them as wild beasts whom it is lawful to extirpate. There are of course honourable exceptions, although such is a very common sentiment. As an instance, I may mention that a friend of mine, who was once travelling in Tasmania, with two natives of Australia, was asked, by almost everyone, where he had CAUGHT them? This expression will enable the reader better to appreciate the true state of the case than many instances of ferocity I could enumerate. It shows that the natives occupy a wrong position in the minds of the whites; and that a radical defect exists in their original conception of their character, and of the mode in which they ought to be treated.

CAPTURE OF NATIVES.

Soon after I returned to the ship at Port Dalrymple, a party of natives was sent on board, with a request that I would allow the Vansittart to take them to Flinders Island; it consisted of an elderly woman and man, two young men, and a little boy. These were the remainder of the small tribe to which belonged the woman who received, as I have related, such cruel treatment from her keeper. I should here state, that when she was removed to Flinders Island, none of the natives there could understand her--a fact somewhat hostile to the theory of those who hold that there is little or no variety in the aboriginal languages of Australasia.