or Murray Islanders.  Some of them had large bushy whiskers, with no hair on their chins or upper lips, having the appearance of being regularly shaved.  It would be almost impossible for any class of men to excel these fellows in the scheming and versatile cunning with which they strove to disguise their meditated treachery.  In fine weather I always had our firearms standing out for them to see, and once or twice every night I fired off a pistol, to let them know we were on the lookout by night as well as by day.

December 28.

Niblett and Wall both died this morning; Niblett was quite dead when I got up, and Wall, though alive, was unable to speak; they were neither of them up the day previous.  I had been talking with them both, endeavouring to encourage them to hope on to the last, but sickness, privation, and fatigue had overcome them, and they abandoned themselves to a calm and listless despair.  We had got two pigeons the day before, which in the evening were boiled and divided between us, as well as the water they were boiled in.  Niblett had eaten his pigeon, and drank the water, but Wall had only drank the water and eaten part of his half pigeon.  About eleven o’clock, as many as fifty natives, armed with spears, and some of them painted with a yellowish earth, made their appearance in the vicinity of our camp.  There were natives of several strange tribes amongst them.  They were well aware that neither Niblett nor Wall was able to resist them, if they did not know they were dead.  They also knew that we were very weak, although I always endeavoured as much as possible to keep that fact from them.  This morning when I made signs to them to lay down their spears they paid no attention, with the exception of two, who had been in the habit of coming very frequently to the camp.  These two came running up quite close to us, without their spears, and endeavoured to persuade one of us to go across a small dry creek, for a fish which another of the rascals was holding up to tempt us.  They tried various methods to draw our attention from the rest, who were trailing their spears along the ground, with their feet, closing gradually round us, and running from tree to tree, to hide their spears behind them.  Others lay on their backs on the long grass, and were working their way towards us, unnoticed, as they supposed.  Goddard and myself stood with our guns in readiness and our pistols by our sides for about two hours, when I fell from excessive weakness.  When I got up we thought it best to send them away at once, or stand our chance of being speared in the attempt, both of us being unable to stand any longer.  We presented our guns at the two by our side, making signs to them to send the others away, or we would shoot them immediately.  This they did, and they ran off in all directions without a spear being thrown or a shot fired.  We had many times tried to catch fish in the creek during our stay at Weymouth Bay, with our fishing lines, but never could get as much as a bite at the bait.