Delicacy of feeling is not often laid to the charge of the Aborigines, and yet I was witness to a singular instance of it at King George’s Sound.  I was looking one evening at the natives dancing, and who were, as they always are on these occasions, in a state of complete nudity.  In the midst of the performance, one of the natives standing by a spectator, mentioned that a white woman was passing up the road; and although this was some little distance away, and the night was tolerably dark, they all with one accord crossed over to the bushes where their cloaks were, put them on, and resumed their amusement.

It has been said, and is generally believed, that the natives are not courageous.  There could not be a greater mistake, at least as far as they are themselves concerned, nor do I hold it to be any proof that they are cowards, because they dread or give way before Europeans and their fire-arms.  So unequal a match is no criterion of bravery, and yet even thus, among natives, who were labouring under the feelings, naturally produced by seeing a race they were unacquainted with, and weapons that dealt death as if by magic, I have seen many instances of an open manly intrepidity of manner and bearing, and a proud unquailing glance of eye, which instinctively stamped upon my mind the conviction that the individuals before me were very brave men.

In travelling about from one place to another, I have always made it a point, if possible, to be accompanied by one or more natives, and I have often found great advantage from it.  Attached to an exploring party they are frequently invaluable, as their perceptive powers are very great, and enable them both to see and hear anything at a much greater distance than a European.  In tracking stray animals, and keeping on indistinct paths, they display a degree of perseverance and skill that is really wonderful.  They are useful also in cutting bark canoes to cross a river, should such impede the progress of the party, and in diving for anything that may be lost in the water, etc. etc.  The Aborigines generally, and almost always those living near large bodies of water, are admirable swimmers and divers, and are almost as much at home in the water as on dry land.  I have known them even saw a small log or root at the bottom of a deep river.  In a locality, however, which is badly watered, it sometimes happens that they cannot swim.  At Meerkap, in Western Australia, while crossing with some friends, from the Sound to Swan River, we met with some who were in this predicament, and who seemed a good deal astonished at our venturing into the small ponds at that place.  I have been told that the natives at the Sound could not swim before that settlement was occupied by Europeans—­this seems hardly probable, however, upon the sea-coast; at all events, be this as it may, they all swim now.