After Breakfast Mr. Tietkens Went To Try To Recover Them, But Soon Returned, Informing Me He Had Met A Number

Of natives at the smoke-house, who appeared very peaceably inclined, and who were on their road down through the

Pass. This was rather unusual; previous to our conflict they had never come near us, and since that, they had mostly given us a wide berth, and seemed to prefer being out of the reach of our rifles than otherwise. They soon appeared, although they kept away on the east side of the creek. They then shouted, and when I cooeyed and beckoned them to approach, they sat down in a row. I may here remark that the word cooey, as representing the cry of all Australian aborigines, belonged originally to only one tribe or region, but it has been carried about by whites from tribe to tribe, and is used by the civilised and semi-civilised races; but wild natives who have never seen whites use no such cry. There were thirteen of these men. Mr. Tietkens and I went over to them, and we had quite a friendly conference. Their leader was an individual of a very uncertain age - he might have been forty, or he might have been eighty (in the shade). (This was written some time before the "Mikado" appeared. - E.G.) His head was nearly bald on the crown, but some long grizzly locks depended below the bald patch.

The others were generally much younger, but some of them, though not clean past their youth, yet had about them some smacks of the saltness of age.

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