n
agreeable incident: the tones of one's native language, or the
reminiscences of one's earlier and happier years, which such a meeting
recalls, are sure to bestow upon it a pleasure of its own. What was it
then to meet a former fellow voyager, and a friend? To meet him after
almost despairing of his safety? and to meet him fresh from a perilous
and partially successful attempt to penetrate into the same unknown and
mysterious country, a further and more perfect acquaintance with which
was a prime object of my own personal ambition, no less than of public
duty with all engaged in our present adventure? Those who have known the
communion of sentiment and interest, which it is the tendency of one
common purpose to create among all by whom that purpose is shared, can
most readily and most perfectly understand with what deep and mutual
interest Lieutenant Grey and myself heard and recounted all that each had
done since our parting at the Cape.

Several anecdotes of his adventures confirmed my own experience, and add
weight to the opinions I have before expressed. From his description of
the tribes his party had encountered, he must have been among a people
more advanced in civilization than any we had hitherto seen upon this
coast. He found several curious figures,* images, and drawings, generally
in colours, upon the sides of caves in the sandstone rock, which,
notwithstanding their rude style, yet evince a greater degree of
advancement and intelligence than we have been able to find any traces
of: at the same time it must be remembered that no certain date
absolutely connects these works with the present generation: the dryness
of the natural walls upon which they are executed, and the absence of any
atmospheric moisture may have, and may yet preserve them for an
indefinite period, and their history read aright, may testify not the
present condition of the Australian School of Design, but the perfection
which it had formerly attained.

(*Footnote. Illustrated in Lieutenant Grey's first Volume.)

LIGHT-COLOURED NATIVES.

Lieutenant Grey too, like ourselves, had seen certain individuals in
company with the natives much lighter in colour, and widely differing in
figure and physiognomy from the savages by whom they were surrounded; and
was inclined to believe that they are descended from Dutch sailors, who
at different times, suffering shipwreck upon the coast, have intermarried
with its native inhabitants: but as no auth