generally speaking, a clean-limbed and powerful race, much stouter in the
bust than below, but withal, active, and, in some respects, intelligent;
but the women are poor, weak, and emaciated. This, perhaps, is owing to
their poverty and paucity of food, and to the treatment they receive at
the hands of the men; but the latter did not show any unkindness towards
them in our presence.

Although I desired to avoid exciting their alarm, I still made a point of
showing them the effects of a gunshot, by firing at a kite, or any other
bird that happened to be near. My dexterity--for I did not trust Fraser,
who would, ten to one, have missed his mark--was generally exerted, as I
have said, against a kite or a crow; both of which birds generally
accompanied the blacks from place to place to pick up the remnants of
their meals. Yet, I was often surprised at the apparent indifference with
which the natives not only saw the effect of the shot, but heard the
report. I have purposely gone into the centre of a large assemblage and
fired at a bird that has fallen upon their very heads, without causing a
start or an exclamation, without exciting either their alarm or their
curiosity.

Whence this callous feeling proceeded, whether from strength of nerve,
or because they had been informed by our forerunners that we should show
off before them, I know not, but I certainly expected a very different
effect from that which my firing generally produced, although I
occasionally succeeded in scattering them pretty well.

JUNCTION OF THE RUFUS.

About 11 a.m., we arrived at the junction of a small river with the
Murray, at which a tribe, about 250 in number, had assembled to greet us.