NATIVE POLICE OF NE\T HOLLAND. 165 



from farm to farm ; and most of the neighbouring settlers repaired, 

 the next day, to visit and welcome their old friend. On inquiry, 

 however, Fisher's assistant declared that he had not arrived; and 

 affected to laugh at the settler's story, insinuating that he had pro- 

 bably drank too freely at market. The neighbours were not so easily 

 satisfied: their dormant suspicions were awakened, by what they 

 now began to consider a preternatural apparition ; and they applied 

 to the magistrates of the district, who directed an immediate and 

 strict investigation to be instituted. 



Several natives, of well-known sagacity and fidelity, are attached 

 to the Paramatta police, as constables, and are of invaluable service 

 in tracing and pursuing bush-rangers, and other criminals who have 

 absconded. One of these, known by the name of Sam, was ordered 

 to examine Fisher's house and farm, and to endeavour to find traces 

 of him in the bush. He set off, followed by most of the settler^ be- 

 longing to the Nepean and other neighbouring districts, who had 

 been collected by curiosity and intense interest. The farmer who 

 had seen the figure resembling Fisher, pointed out the exact spot; 

 and the black, having examined the railing, discovered a dark brown 

 stain on the split timber, which he scraped, smelt, and at once declared 

 to be " white mans blood!" He then, without the least hesitation, 

 set off in full run, after the manner of a staunch blood-hound, towards 

 a pond not far from the house. A little dark scum was floating on 

 the surface : he scooped some off with his hand smelt tasted it 

 and cried out, " White mans fat!" Having tried the field, backwards 

 and forwards in different directions, as if to recover the scent, Sam 

 led the chase to a small coppice. Here he bored the earth in several 

 places with a ramrod, smelling the point every time, until he paused, 

 pointed to the ground, and said, " White man here!" The spot was 

 speedily dug up ; and a corpse, sworn to by the neighbours as that 

 of Fisher, was discovered, with the skull fractured, and in a state of 

 rapid decomposition, evidently many weeks buried. 



The guilty assistant was immediately arrested, and tried at Sidney, 

 on circumstantial evidence alone strong enough, however, to convict 

 him, in spite of his self-possession and protestations of innocence. 

 He was sentenced to death ; and previous to his execution, made an 

 ample confession of his guilt. He declared that he had murdered 

 Fisher, while sitting on the very rail that the settler had pointed out, 

 about three months before the appearance of that extraordinary appa- 

 rition; that he had, in the first place, dragged the body to the pond, 

 where the black constable had discovered traces of it ; but, that after 

 it had been some days immersed there, his apprehensions of detection 

 had impelled him to remove it to the coppice, where he had buried 

 it by night, and alone. 



R. L. V. 



