NAERATIVE OF ME. CARBON. 221 



seen at Eocking-ham Bay, most of the men being 

 from five feet ten to six feet high. The general 

 characteristics of the race were different from those 

 of the other aborigines I had ever seen, and I 

 imagined that they might be an admixture of the 

 Australian tribes and the Malays, or Murray Is- 

 landers. Some of them had large bushy whiskers, 

 with no hair on their chins or upper lips, having the 

 appearance of being regularly shaved. It would 

 be almost impossible for any class of men to excel 

 these fellows in the scheming and versatile cunning 

 with which they strove to disguise their meditated 

 treachery. In fine weather I always had our fire- 

 arms standing out for them to see, and once or 

 twice every night I fired off a pistol, to let them 

 know we were on the look-out by night as well as 

 by day. 



Dec. 28i^A.— Niblett and Wall both died this 

 morning ; Niblett was quite dead when I got up, 

 and Wall, though alive, was unable to speak ; they 

 were neither of them up the day previous. I had 

 been talking with them both, endeavouring to 

 encourage them to hope on to the last, but sickness, 

 privation, and fatigue had overcome them, and they 

 abandoned themselves to a calm and listless despair. 

 We had got two pigeons the day before, which in 

 the evening were boiled and divided between us, as 

 well as the water they were boiled in. Niblett had 

 eaten his pigeon, and drank the water, but Wall had 



