Mr Macgillivray continues: '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 awakening
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. 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 tune, it was
remarked by every one 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.'

In accordance with her wish, Mrs Thomson was kept on board, and had a
cabin given up to her own use; good living and medical attendance soon
cured the soreness of her tanned and blistered skin, and the
ophthalmia, which had deprived her of the sight of one eye. The black
Boroto grew desperate when he found that she would not return to him,
and threatened to cut off her head to satisfy his vengeance--a
catastrophe which the rescued woman avoided by not going on shore; and
she was eventually handed over, in good condition, to her parents on
the return of the vessel to Sydney, at the beginning of 1850.

Shortly afterwards, to the great sorrow of all on board, Captain
Stanley died, at the early age of thirty-eight. He had brought his
scientific labours to a successful close, and might have looked
forward to a brief period of honourable repose; but the fatigue and