; so I could only conclude that I must have let
them all go myself, because, as they were gone, and nobody else let
them go, why, of course, I suppose I must. 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).
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