THE NATIVE " YAMPEE." 175 



of *' Yampce.'* He again made use of the word 

 Yampee according to our orthography, and after 

 repeating it several times, I offered him some 

 water, which he very eagerly accepted, twice empty- 

 ing a canister that had originally held 4lbs. of 

 preserved meat ; this afforded me additional proof 

 of Yampce being the word the natives of these 

 parts use for water. At Swan River, the native 

 name for water is gab-by, which differs so much as 

 to lead us to suppose the dialect of the two places is 

 quite distinct. This supposition is also borne out 

 by the fact, that Miago, the native of Swan River 

 we had on board, could never understand the lan- 

 guage spoken by his countrymen, on the western 

 shore of King's Sound. We found our new acquain- 

 tance as yesterday, perfectly naked, the raft he was 

 on was in every respect similar to that previously 

 seen upon Rae's Group, with this slight exception, 

 that between each pole several small pieces of wood 

 were inserted so as to make the flooring of the raft 

 almost smooth. Into the large end of the centre, 

 and largest pole, six long pegs were driven, forming 

 a kind of basket in which were secured his means 

 for procuring fire ; they consisted of two pieces of 

 white flint, and some tinder rudely manufactured 

 from the inner bark of the papyrus tree. He 

 used in paddling a short spear, sharp at each end, 

 and struck the water alternately on either side ; in 

 this primitive manner he contrived to make way 

 with a rapidity that astonished us all. He had two 



