Upon being asked by Captain Stanley whether she really preferred remaining with us to accompanying the natives back to their island, as she would be allowed her free choice in the matter, she was so much agitated as to find difficulty in expressing her thankfulness, making use of scraps of English alternately with the Kowrarega language, and then, suddenly awaking to the recollection that she was not understood, the poor creature blushed all over, and with downcast eyes, beat her forehead with her hand, as if to assist in collecting her scattered thoughts.

HER HISTORY.

At length, after a pause, she found words to say:  “Sir, I am a Christian, and would rather go back to my own friends.”  At the same time, it was remarked by everyone that she had not lost the feelings of womanly modesty—­even after having lived so long among naked blacks; she seemed acutely to feel the singularity of her position—­dressed only in a couple of shirts, in the midst of a crowd of her own countrymen.

When first seen on shore our new shipmate presented so dirty and wretched an appearance that some people who were out shooting at first mistook her for a gin, and were passing by without taking further notice, when she called out to them in English:  “I am a white woman, why do you leave me?” With the exception of a narrow fringe of leaves in front, she wore no clothing, and her skin was tanned and blistered with the sun, and showed the marks of several large burns which had been received from sleeping too near the fire on cold nights; besides, she was suffering from ophthalmia, which had previously deprived her of the sight of one eye.  But good living, and every comfort (for Captain Stanley kindly provided her with a cabin and a seat at his table) combined with medical attention, very soon restored her health, and she was eventually handed over to her parents in Sydney in excellent condition.

Although perfectly illiterate, Mrs. Thomson had made good use of her powers of observation, and evinced much shrewdness in her remarks upon various subjects connected with her residence among the blacks, joined to great willingness to communicate any information which she possessed.  Much of this will be found in another part of this volume, incorporated with the result of my own observations.  Several hundred words of the Kowrarega language, and a portion of its grammar, were also obtained from time to time, and most of these were subsequently verified.  And, although she did not understand the language spoken at Cape York, yet, as some of the Gudang people there knew the Kowrarega, through its medium I was usually able to make myself tolerably well understood, and thus obtain an explanation of some matters which had formerly puzzled me, and correct various errors into which I had fallen.  It was well, too, that I took an early opportunity of procuring these words, for my informant afterwards forgot much of her lately-acquired language, and her value as an authority on that subject gradually diminished.