d himself with much
address, and would have defied and foiled them both, had they kept fairly
and openly in his front; but one of them, with the treachery common to
those savage people, contrived to skulk behind, and throw a spear into
his side, the weapon penetrating seven inches into the cavity of his
body, and, from its direction, being supposed to have wounded the
intestines. He was taken on board the _Reliance_, where at first the
wound was attended with some unfavourable symptoms, nothing remaining
upon his stomach.

Gaining every day some further knowledge of the inhuman habits and
customs of these people, their being so thinly scattered through the
country ceased to be a matter of surprise. It was almost daily seen, that
from some trifling cause or other they were continually living in a state
of warfare; to this must be added their brutal treatment of their women,
who are themselves equally destructive to the measure of population, by
the horrid and cruel custom of endeavouring to cause a miscarriage, which
their female acquaintance effect by pressing the body in such a way, as
to destroy the infant in the womb; which violence not infrequently
occasions the death of the unnatural mother also. To this they have
recourse, to avoid the trouble of carrying the infant about when born,
which, when it is very young, or at the breast, is the duty of the woman.
The operation for this destructive purpose is termed Mee-bra. The burying
an infant (when at the breast) with the mother*, if she should die, is
another shocking cause of the thinness of population among them. The fact
that such an operation as the Mee-bra was practised by these wretched
people was communicated by one of the natives to the principal surgeon of
the settlement.

[* See Vol. I Appendix XI, viz: 'When the body was placed in the grave,
the bye-standers were amazed to see the father himself place the
living child in it with the mother. Having laid the child down,
he threw upon it a large stone, and the grave was instantly filled
in by the other natives. The whole business was so momentary, that
our people had not time or presence of mind sufficient to prevent it; and
on speaking about it to Cole-be, be, so far from thinking it inhuman,
justified the extraordinary act by assuring us that as no woman could be
found to nurse the child it must die a much worse death than that to
which he had put it. As a similar circumstance occurred a short time
after,