308 WINI AND THE 



hia companions; some three or four in number. In 

 course of time he became the most important 

 person in the tribe, having- g-ained an ascendancy 

 by procuring the death of his principal enemies and 

 intimidating- others, which led to the establishment 

 of his fame as a warrior, and he became in conse- 

 quence the possessor of several wives, a eanoe, and 

 some property in land, the cultivation of which last 

 he pays great attention to. Wini's character ap- 

 pears from the accounts I have heard— for others 

 corroborated part of Gri'om's statement— to be a com- 

 pound of villany and cunning-, in addition to the 

 ferocity and headstrong- passions of a thorough 

 savag-e, — it strikes me that he must have been a 

 runaway convict, probably from Norfolk Island. 

 It is fortunate that his sphere of mischief is so 

 limited, for a more dangerous ruffian could not easily 

 be found. As matters stand at present, it is probable 

 that not only during his life, but for years after- 

 wards, every European who falls into the hands of 

 the Badii people will meet with certain death.* 



* In further illustration of this assertion I give the following 

 note with which I have lately been furnished by Mr. J. Sweatman, 

 R.N., who served in the Bramble at the time of the occurrence 

 of the murder to which it alludes. In June 1846 the supercargo 

 and a boat's crew of a small vessel from Sydney procuring 

 trepang and tortoise-shell in Torres Strait, landed upon Mulgrave 

 Island (the vessel being about seven miles off) in order to barter 

 for tortoise-shell. The natives appeared at first to be friendly 

 enough, but, towards evening some circumstances occurred which 

 induced the boat's crew to re-embark, and they then went to a 



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