222 Kennedy's expedition. 



only drank the water and eaten part of his half pig'eon. 

 — About eleven o'clock^ as many as fifty natives, 

 armed with spears, and some of them painted with 

 a yellowish earth, made their appearance in the 

 vicinity of our camp. There were natives of several 

 strange tribes among'st them. They were well 

 aware that neither Niblett nor Wall was able to 

 resist them, if they did not know they were dead. 

 They also knew that we were very weak, althoug-li 

 I always endeavoured as much as possible to keep 

 that fact from them. This mornino- when I made 

 signs to them to lay down their spears they paid 

 no attention, with the exception of two, who had 

 been in the habit of coming very frequently to the 

 camp. These two came running up quite close to 

 us, without their spears, and endeavoured to per- 

 suade one of us to go across a small dry creek, for a 

 fish which another of the rascals was holding up to 

 tempt us. They tried various methods to draw our 

 attention from the rest, who were trailing their spears 

 along the ground, with their feet, closing gradually 

 round us, and running from tree to tree, to hide 

 their spears behind them. Others lay on their 

 backs on the long grass, and were working their 

 way towards us, unnoticed as they supposed. God- 

 dard and myself stood with our guns in readiness 

 and our pistols by our sides for about two hours, 

 when I fell from excessive weakness. When I got 

 up Ave thought it best to send them away at once, 



