92 cOjNDuct of miago. 



seemed greatly in fear of them : they seemed 

 astonished to find one apparently of their *'own 

 clime, complexion, and degree" in company with the 

 white strangers, who must have seemed to them a 

 different race of beings ; nor was their wonder at 

 all abated when Miago threw open his shirt, and 

 showed them his breast curiously scarred after their 

 fashion — for this custom of cutting stripes upon 

 the body, as other savages tattoo it, by way of 

 ornament, seems universally to prevail throughout 

 Australia — as a convincinsf evidence that he, though 

 now the associate of the white man, belonged to the 

 same country as themselves. When Miago had, in 

 some degree, recovered from his alarm — and their 

 want of all weapons no doubt tended to re-assure 

 him more than anything else, he very sagaciously 

 addressed them in English ; shaking hands and 

 saying, "How do you do?" and then began to 

 imitate their various actions, and mimic their lan- 

 guage, and so perfectly did he succeed that one of 

 our party could not be persuaded but that he really 

 understood them ; though for this suspicion I am 

 convinced there was in truth no foundation. In 

 general appearance this tribe differed but little 

 from those we had previously seen. They wore 

 their hair straight, and tied behind in a rude sem- 

 blance of the modern queue ; their beards were 

 long, and two or three among them were daubed 

 with a kind of black ochre. All of them had lost 

 one of the front teeth, and several one Answer 



