A Source Book of Australian History by Unknown
page 18 of 298 (06%)
page 18 of 298 (06%)
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they were pretty quiet, and the rest that fled from us at our first
coming, returned again. This, their place of dwelling, was only a fire, with a few boughs before it, set up on that side the wind was of. After we had been here a little while, the men began to be familiar, and we cloathed some of them, designing to have some service of them for it; for we found some wells of water here, and intended to carry two or three barrels of it on board. But being somewhat troublesome to carry on the canoes, we thought to have made these men carry it for us and therefore we gave them some cloathes; to one an old pair of breeches; to another a ragged shirt; to the third a jacket that was scarce worth owning; which yet would have been very acceptable at some places where we had been, and so we thought they might have with these people. We put them on them, thinking that this finery would have brought them to work heartily for us; and our water being filled in small long barrels, about six gallons each, which were made purposely to carry water in, we brought these, our new servants, to the wells and put a barrel on each of their shoulders for them to carry to the canoe. But all the signs we could make were to no purpose, for they stood like statues, without motion, but grinned like so many monkeys, staring one upon another, for these poor creatures seem not accustomed to carry burdens; and I believe that one of our ships-boys of ten years old, would carry as much as one of them; so we were forced to carry our water ourselves, and they very fairly put the cloathes off again, and laid them down as if cloathes were only to work in. I did not perceive that they had any great liking to them at first, neither did they seem to admire anything that we had. At our first coming, before we were acquainted with them, or they with us, a company of them who lived on the main, came just against our ship, and standing on a pretty bank, threatened us with their swords and |
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