THE NATIVES. 
195 
advanced nearer, the guide saw that he was mis- 
taken in the group before him, and that they were 
not the guilty parties, but friends. The officer 
called out not to fire, but unfortunately from the 
distance the men were at, and the scrubby na- 
ture of the country, he was not heard or attended 
to. A shot was fired, one of the natives sprung up 
convulsively in the water, walked on shore and fell 
down, exclaiming whilst dying, “ me Kopler, me 
good man,” and such indeed it proved. He was 
one of a friendly tribe, and a particular protege of the 
missionary’s, having taken the name of Kopler from 
his German servant who was so called. 
The other natives at once came forward to their 
dying friend, scornfully motioning away his mur- 
derers, fearless alike of the foes around them, and 
regardless of their ill-timed attempts to explain the 
fatal mistake. Will it be credited, that at such a 
scene as this the soldiers were indulging in coarse 
remarks, or brutal jests, upon the melancholy catas- 
trophe ; and comparing the last convulsive spring 
of the dying man to a salmon leaping in the water. 
Yet this I was assured was the case by the Govern - 
men Resident at Port Lincoln, from whom I re- 
ceived this account. 
Another melancholy and unfortunate case of the 
same nature occurred at Port Lincoln, on the lltli 
of April, 1844, where a native was shot by a police- 
man, for attempting to escape from custody, when 
taken in charge on suspicion of being implicated in 
o 2 
