PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERANCE FROM DANGER. 107 
ing among them, we should make a diversion in favour of 
our late guest; and in this I succeeded. If even they had 
still meditated violence, they would have to swim a good 
broad junction, and that, probably, would cool them, or we 
at least should have the advantage of position. I therefore, 
ran the boat ashore, and landed with M'Leay amidst the 
smaller party of natives, wholly unarmed, and having di- 
rected the men to keep at a little distance from the bank. 
Fortunately, what I anticipated was brought about by the 
stratagem to which I had had recourse. The blacks no 
sooner observed that we had landed, than curiosity took 
place of anger. All wrangling ceased, and they came swim- 
ming over to us like a parcel of seals. Thus, in less than a 
quarterof an hour from the moment when it appeared that all 
human intervention was at an end, and we were on the point 
of commencing a bloody fray, which, independently of itsown 
disastrous consequences, would have blasted the success of 
the expedition, we were peacefully surrounded by the hun- 
dreds who had so lately threatened us with destruction ; nor 
was it until after we had returned to the boat, and had sur- 
veyed the multitude upon the sloping bank above us, that we 
became fully aware of the extent of our danger, and of the 
almost miraculous intervention of Providence in our favour. 
There could not have been less than six hundred natives 
upon that blackened sward. But this was not the only 
occasion upon which the merciful superintendance of that 
Providence to which we had humbly committed ourselves, 
was strikingly manifested. If these pages fail to convey 
