safety. After crossing the King Leopold Ranges we struck a level
country, covered with rich, tall grass, and well though not thickly
wooded. The rough granite ranges, by the way, we found rich in alluvial
and reef tin. Gradually the girls grew stronger and brighter. At this
time they were, as you know, clad in their strange "sack" garments of
bird-skins; but even before we reached the Ord River these began to
shrink to such an extent that the wearers were eventually wrapped as in a
vice, and were scarcely able to walk. Yamba then made some make-shift
garments out of opossum skins.

As the girls' spirits rose higher and higher I was assailed by other
misgivings. I do not know quite how the idea arose, but somehow they
imagined that their protector's home was a more or less civilised
settlement, with regular houses, furnished with pianos and other
appurtenances of civilised life! So great was their exuberance that I
could not find it in my heart to tell them that they were merely going
among my own friendly natives, whose admiration and affection for myself
only differentiated them from the other cannibal blacks of unknown
Australia.

When first I saw these poor girls, in the glow of the firelight, and in
their rude shelter of boughs, they looked like old women, so haggard and
emaciated were they; but now, as the spacious catamaran glided down the
stately Ord, they gradually resumed their youthful looks, and were very
comely indeed. The awful look of intolerable anguish that haunted their
faces had gone, and they laughed and chatted with perfect freedom. They
were like birds just set at liberty. They loved Bruno from the very
first; and he loved them. He showed his love, too, in a very practical
manner, by going hunting on his own account and bringing home little
ducks to his new mistresses. Quite of his own accord, also, he would go
through his whole repertoire of tumbling tricks; and whenever the girls
returned to camp from their little wanderings, with bare legs bleeding
from the prickles, Bruno would lick their wounds and manifest every token
of sympathy and affection.

Of course, after leaving the native encampment, it was several weeks
before we made the Ord River, and then we glided down that fine stream
for many days, spearing fish in the little creeks, and generally amusing
ourselves, time being no object. I have, by the way, seen enormous
shoals of fish in this river--mainly mullet--which can onl