y ashore, and I
need scarcely say they were not molested in the slightest degree, and
only found a most harmless black camp of about twenty individuals,
with gins nursing their babies and men walking about. They brought off
a good collection of pectens, clams, helmets, conchs, pearl-oysters,
and large cowries, but the specimens were not very perfect. Also a
quantity of greenery in the shape of _Pancratiums_, _Logodium
scandens_, climbing _Lycopodium_, and a curious sort of fruit off a
palm, which grows in large cone-shaped clusters. They call it
breadfruit in these parts, and the natives eat it; but it certainly
does not look either inviting or eatable. One fruit weighed twelve,
and the other over eleven, pounds.

[Illustration: Queensland Natives]

Two more natives came alongside this morning. They had not the
slightest vestige of clothing; but two men, whom I saw over the side
later in the day, both sported hats, and one of them had on besides a
man-of-war shirt; the other wore a very short tunic cut low in the
neck and several rows of canary-coloured glass beads. We weighed at
eleven, and proceeded towards Dungeness under sail. I was carried up
into the deck-house to see the view, which was provokingly obscured by
mists and driving rain. We found some difficulty in making our way,
owing to the new buoys not having yet been entered on the Admiralty
chart. Fortunately, the officers of the 'Myrmidon' had warned Tom of
this fact, made more dangerous by the thick mist and fog. We
ultimately arrived at Dungeness in safety, taking everybody by
surprise, as no ship had ever been known to go through the southern
entrance of Hinchinbrook Channel before without a pilot. The pilot, a
nice old man, had been looking for us all day yesterday, as well as
all last night. As we did not appear, he must have gone home, thereby
losing the pleasure of conducting us into the harbour, but giving Tom
the gratification of bringing the vessel in through the channel
without taking a pilot.

_Thursday, August 11th._--When I awoke at eight Tab and Mr. des Graz
had already started on their shooting expedition, and at noon we also
set forth on an excursion up the Herbert River. Tom had caused a
comfortable bed to be rigged up for me in the gig, so that I was not
obliged to dress, but simply got out of one bed into another. The gig
was towed by the steam-launch, which also trailed the 'Flash' behind
in case we might want to land in any shallow p