was not _love_, but _fear_: propitiation rather than adoration.

We sang the usual old hymns at our Sunday services, and I soon learned to
sing them myself. On my part, I taught the girls such simple hymns as
the one commencing "_Une nacelle en silence_," which I had learnt at
Sunday-school in Switzerland. It is interesting to note that this was
Bruno's favourite air. Poor Bruno! he took more or less kindly to all
songs--except the Swiss _jodellings_, which he simply detested. When I
started one of these plaintive ditties Bruno would first protest by
barking his loudest, and if I persisted, he would simply go away in
disgust to some place where he could not hear the hated sounds. On
Sunday evening we generally held a prayer-service in the hut, and at such
times offered up most fervent supplications for delivery.

Often I have seen these poor girls lifting up their whole souls in
prayer, quite oblivious for the moment of their surroundings, until
recalled to a sense of their awful positions by the crash of an unusually
large wave on the rocks.

The girls knew no more of Australian geography than I did; and when I
mention that I merely had a vague idea that the great cities of the
continent--Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, and Melbourne--all lay in a southerly
direction, you may imagine how dense was my ignorance of the great
island. I am now the strongest possible advocate of a sound geographical
training in schools.

On ordinary days we indulged in a variety of games, the principal one
being a form of "rounders." I made a ball out of opossum skin, stuffed
with the light soft bark of the paper-tree, and stitched with gut. We
used a yam-stick to strike it with. My native women attendants often
joined in the fun, and our antics provided a vast amount of amusement for
the rest of the tribe. The girls taught me cricket, and in due time I
tried to induce the blacks to play the British national game, but with
little success. We made the necessary bats and stumps out of hard
acacia, which I cut down with my tomahawk. The natives themselves,
however, made bats much better than mine, simply by whittling flat their
waddies; and they soon became expert batsmen. But unfortunately they
failed to see why they should run after the ball, especially when they
had knocked it a very great distance away. Running about in this manner,
they said, was only fit work for women, and was quite beneath their
dignity. Yamba and I fielded,