Native Treachery 25 



sight. The remaining one was brought out after breakfast by 

 the galley under cover of the pinnace, and was towed off to 

 some distance. The paddles having been taken out and the 

 spears broken and left in her, she was let go to drift down 

 toward a village whence the attacking party were supposed to 

 have come. Some blood in this canoe, although not the one 

 most aimed at, showed that the firing had not been ineffective. 

 This act of deliberate treachery was perpetrated by persons 

 who had always been well treated by us, for several of the 

 natives present were recognised as having been alongside the 

 ship in Coral Haven. This, their first act of positive hostility, 

 affords, I think, conclusive evidence of the savage disposition 

 of the natives of this part of the Louisiade Archipelago when in- 

 cited by the hope of plunder, and shews that no confidence 

 should ever be reposed in them, unless, perhaps in the presence 

 of a numerically superior force, or in the close vicinity of a 

 ship. At the same time, the boldness of these savages in at- 

 tacking, with thirty men in three canoes, two boats known to 

 contain at least twenty persons — even in the hopes of taking 

 them by surprise — and in not being at once driven off upon 

 feeling the novel and deadly effects of firearms, shews no little 

 amount of bravery." 



On their last visit to Cape York, in the extreme north 

 of Austraha, the party had the remarkable experience 

 of rescning a white woman from captivity among the 

 natives, 



" In the afternoon some of our people on shore were surprised 

 to see a young white woman come up to claim their protection 

 from a party of natives from whom she had recently made her 

 escape, and who she thought would otherwise bring her back. 

 Of course she received every attention, and was taken on board 

 the ship by the first boat, when she told her story which is 

 briefly as follows : Her name is Barbara Thomson. She was 

 born at Aberdeen in Scotland, and, along with her parents, emi- 

 grated to New South Wales. About four years and a half ago 

 she left Moreton Bay with her husband in a small cutter, called 

 the America, of which he was the owner, for the purpose of 

 picking up some of the oil from the wreck of a whaler, lost on 



