THEIR FAMILIARITY WITH OUR LANGUAGE. 387 
of the river. It proved to be a stream of some ten or 
fifteen yards in width, with a bad bar across its mouth, — “ 
BO bad, in fact, that we beached our boats near its outer 
edge in preference to risking a ducking. Wo then 
walked a mile or more over a fiat, boggy piece of land, 
through which ran our river, as well as several smaller 
streams, and, finally, arrived opposite a scattered collec- 
tion of log houses, from which the people were running 
to welcome us. Let us see what my journal says: — 
“ The river being between us, they launched a couple 
of ‘dug-outs’ to ferry us over; which accomplished, we 
were received by a crowd of from fifteen to twenty 
natives in a Inost friendly manner; and they no sooner 
saw our articles of barter than they became unpleasantly 
so, insisting on shaking hands over and over again, and 
motioning us to follow them to their houses, where they 
had other articles which they would exchange for ours. 
“We readily understood these signs, which w'ere as- 
sisted by a few slang expressions picked up from whalers, 
and, with our ‘peddler-packs’ under our arms, follow^ed 
them up from the river-bank. As wc went along w^e 
gazed with longing eyes at the stunted but plump-looking 
bullocks and the trim little milch-cow’s that dotted the 
undulating country ahead of us, and intimated by signs 
that what we principally wanted to trade for was meat to 
eat and milk to drink. At this they laughed promising!}’', 
and got off the expression ‘bura-by’ quite patly; after 
which they laughed heartily at their evident familiarity 
with our language, and became more aftectionate than 
ever. 
“What seemed to surprise and please them most was 
