142 CHARACTER OF NATIVES. 



Seeing several with spears, I halted, and signed 

 that they should throw them fa way, which they 

 immediately complied with, and on my coming up 

 to them, four stepped forward and embraced me, 

 laughing, dancing, and yelling. Yule and Harvey 

 then gradually came up, and brought me my musket, 

 and also some biscuit and presents for the natives, 

 and we were immediately excellent friends. We 

 then drew a mark on the sand, and signed to them 

 that they were not to come within that towards the 

 tent : this they immediately understood and com- 

 plied with. 



They remained about us during our stay, but never 

 gave us any trouble. While shooting alone at the 

 back of the bay, I one day fell in with six or eight 

 of them, who did not offer me the least molestation. 



The Prince George, a small cutter of eighty tons, 

 then one of our tenders, watered here afterwards, and 

 though the natives were superior to them in number 

 they gave no trouble, but on the contrary, assisted 

 in rolling off the water-casks, and in other ways. 



These people, however, were not the permanent 

 inhabitants of the place, but belonged, 1 think, to the 

 islands on the north side of Endeavour Strait. 

 Mr. Millery, then clerk of the Fly, devoted himself 

 particularly to collecting a vocabulary of the lan- 

 guage of the people of Torres Strait, and collected 

 about fifty of the words of this party. These people 

 were sufficiently ugly, and in person, not very dif- 

 ferent from the Australians. Their hair, however, 

 was frizzly or fi tufted/' which the hair of the true 



