330 ARRIVE AT A CATTLE STATION. [CH. VIII. 



our progress along this unsurveyed part of the Began, we 

 had several times heard the natives and called to them, but 

 they could not be induced to come near us. To-day, how- 

 ever, I saw smoke at a distance, and hastened towards it with 

 Burnett, who succeeded (although the rest of the tribe fled) in 

 intercepting one individual between him and me, who proved 

 to be our old friend Bultje, the very intelligent native who had 

 fonnerly been our guide. The rest of the tribe soon returned, 

 and gathering around us, they all seemed much amused with 

 our relation (and representations) of the conduct of the 

 " Myall blackfellows" on the Darling. They could not afford 

 any explanation of those ceremonies, which appeared to be as 

 strange to them, as they had been to us. The only obser- 

 vation of Bultje, on learning that some of them had been 

 shot, was, '•' Stupid whitefellows ! why did you not bring away 

 the gins ?" We eagerly enquired, whether he knew anything 

 of one white-fellow of ours, who had been lost, but he appeared 

 surprised to hear it. He told us, however, that we were near 

 a cattle station, where two white men had been recently es- 

 tablished, having come from the colony, along our track over 

 the mountains. I hastened towards the dwelling of these 

 white men, and the symmetrical appearance of their stock-yard 

 fence, when it first caught my eye, so long accustomed to 

 the wavy lines of simple nature, looked quite charming as a 

 work of art. Our hearts warmed at the very sight of the 

 smoking chimney ; and on riding up to the hut, I need not 

 say with what pleasure, I recognized two men of our own 

 race. On seeing my pedestrian companions however, armed, 

 feathered, and in rags; these white men were growing whiter, 

 until I l)riefly told them who we were, and that we really were 

 not bushrangers. They said a bushranger, on horseback, had 

 been seen in that country, only a few days before by the 

 natives, at whom ho had fired a pistol, when they had nearly 

 caught him at a water-hole. I was glad to ascertain the 

 fact, even in this shape, that my courier Baldock, whom 

 they of course meant, had got safely so far with my despatches. 



