OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



379 



enemies, but would eat or drink or fit with him as friends. A few days 

 alter a relation of Bone-da (an old man) received a fevere wound on the 

 back of his head, given him on account of the boy's deceafe ; neither 

 youth nor age, kindred nor friendmip, appearing to afford any exemp- 

 tion from thofe fanguinary cuftoms. 



When Ben-nil-long's wife died, many fpears were thrown and fe ve- 

 ra! men wounded. Ben-nil-long himfelf had a fevere conteft with 

 Wil-le-mer-ring, whom he wounded in the thigh, He had fent for 

 him as a car-rah-dy to attend her when the was ill; but he either could 

 not or would not obey the fummons. Ben- nil-long had chofen the 

 time for celebrating thefe funeral games in honour of his deceafed 

 wife, when a whale-feaft had affembled a large number of natives toge- 

 ther, among w r hom were feveral people from the northward, who 

 fpoke a dialect very different from that with which they were ac- 

 quainted at Port Jackfon. 



Some officers, happening once to be prefent in the lower part of the 

 harbour when a child died, perceived the men immediately retire, and 

 throw their fpears at one another with much apparent anger, while the 

 females began their ufual lamentations. 



When Ben-nil-long's infant child died, feveral fpears were thrown, 

 and Ben-nil-long, at the deceafe of her mother, faid repeatedly that he 

 fhould not be fatisfied until he had facrificed lome one to her manes. 



A native having wounded a young woman, the wife of another 

 man, and me having fome time after exchanged a perilous and trou- 

 blefome life for the repofe and quiet of the grave, a conteft en- 

 fued on account of her deceafe ; when the offender was feverely 

 wounded, and afterwards led to the hofpital by the very man from 

 whom he received his wound. 



A combat, occafioned by a Botany Bay native poffeffing himfelf 

 of the wife of a Port Jackfon favage, took place, which was at- 

 tended with more ceremony than ufual. The delinquent arrived, 

 accompanied by a large party of his own friends, from the fouth 

 fhore of Botany Bay. Many of his aflbciates in arms were entire 



3 c 2 ftrangers 



