mp, but
appeared very friendly; they are a finer race of men than those usually
seen in the southern districts of the colony, but their habits and mode
of life seem very similar. They left us before dark, without making any
attempt at plunder.

June 10.

Mr. Kennedy returned to the camp this evening; he still found the swamps
were impassable, the water and mud lying on them in many parts, from
three to four feet deep; there were patches of dry land here and there
covered with good but coarse grass.

We saw here large flocks of black and white ducks, making a whistling
noise similar to some I have seen near Port Macquarie; Mr. Wall shot
three of them, and they proved very good to eat, but they were not new,
belonging to the genus Dendrocygna eytoni.

June 11.

We started early this morning and proceeded along the beach for three or
four miles, when we came to another river, similar in its character to
the one we crossed on the 8th, with low sandy banks, and dry bushy land
on each side. We unloaded and hobbled our horses, and prepared our punt
as before.

Near to this spot we came to a native encampment, consisting of eighteen
or twenty huts of an oval form, about seven feet long, and four feet
high; and at the southern end of the camp, was one large hut eighteen
feet long, seven feet wide, and fourteen feet high. All of them were
neatly and strongly built with small saplings stuck in the ground, arched
over, and tied together at the top with small shoots of the climbing
palm, which I have already described. They were covered with the bark of
the large Melaleucas which grow in the swamps, fastened to the saplings
with palm shoots. A small opening is left at one end, from the ground to
the top, and the floors were covered with long dried grass.

The natives being absent from the camp, I entered the large gunyah, and
found in it a large shield of solid wood, two feet in diameter, convex on
one side, and flat on the other. The convex side was curiously painted
red, in circular rings and crosses. On the flat side was a handle, cut
out of the solid wood. In the same hut I found four wooden swords, three
and a half feet long, and four inches broad, sharp at both edges, and
thick in the centre, with a slightly curved, round handle, about six
inches long. They were made of very hard wood, and were much too heavy to
wield with one hand. I also found a number of fishing lines, made from
grass, with hooks attached of variou