80 LOADED PISTOLS LEFT BEHIND. 



u})Gn any hostile intentions, supposing such to have 

 existed in their minds. The accident, however, and 

 their sudden appearance, could only serve addition- 

 ally to flurry the little party who had to convey their 

 disabled officer to a place of safety, and Mr. Help- 

 man, who may well be pardoned the want of his 

 usual self-possession at such a moment, left behind 

 a pair of loaded pistols. They would puzzle the 

 savages greatly of course, but I hope no ill conse- 

 quences ensued : if they began pulling them about, 

 or put them in the fire, the better to separate the 

 wood and iron, two or three poor wretches might 

 be killed or maimed for life, and their first recol- 

 lections of the " Quibra men," as Miago calls us, 

 would naturally be any thing but favourable. 



Thus disastrously terminated our examination 

 of Roebuck Bay, in which the cheering reports of 

 former navigators, no less than the tenor of our 

 hydrographical instructions had induced us to anti- 

 cipate the discovery of some great water communi- 

 cation with the interior of this vast Continent. A 

 most thorough and careful search — in which every 

 one seemed animated by one common and universal 

 sentiment, prompting all to a zealous discharge of 

 duty — had clearly demonstrated that the hoped-for 

 river must be sought elsewhere : and that very fact 

 which at first seemed to lessen the probabilities of 

 ultimate success, served rather to inspire than to 

 daunt ; since while it could not shake our reliance 

 upon the opinions of those best qualified to decide, 



