In about a week we again had the pleasure of seeing them coming in great numbers, and camping in an island about a mile off. From certain signs which experience had taught us, we were well assured that they intended making a grand attack upon our hut. I had no one living at Wirrai then; and as there were only four of us at Barratta, viz., H., (who had just arrived), myself and two men, (the two who had been sent after the cattle, were still away,) and wishing to give the Blacks a severe lesson, we sent to the next station for as many men as they could spare. The man we sent had only just reached the station, when the Commissioner of the district chanced also to arrive there. Now the Commissioner in those days was a man of great authority; in fact, altogether more like a little king, than any less lordly personage: so, instead of coming down himself with his police to our assistance, he allowed the superintendent to send six of his men, while he himself remained where he was “otium cum” for in truth the old fellow—to say nothing of his love of ease, was of old Falstaff’s opinion touching the advisable predominance of a certain quality in the exercise of valour. The men arrived in great silence at midnight, and the Blacks fortunately knew nothing of their arrival; for if they had, they would have deferred their attack until a more seasonable opportunity when we were not so well prepared for their reception. Daylight came, and in the distance we could see their dusky figures crossing the lagoon to one side. They had only three canoes, so that it was a considerable time before all were landed. They then gathered together in a clump in dead silence, and held a council of war, thinking themselves unobserved all the time. At sunrise they slowly approached, and only those of us whom they expected to see showed out to them, and without arms; they appeared to have no other arms than their tomahawks; but every man of them was dragging a large jagged spear with their toes through the long grass. When, by the way, one of these spears enters a man’s body, it is impossible to get it out again, except by cutting the flesh all round it, or pushing it right through to the other side. As they advanced nearer, they spoke, and continued talking to us all the time in the most friendly strains, until within about twenty yards; when just as they (at a signal given by one of them) were stooping to pick up their spears to make a rush, the men in the hut let drive through loopholes right among them; and we all made a simultaneous rush, and put them to rout in a manner that would have given the Old Duke intense satisfaction had he been looking on. How many fell, I cannot say, as they always try to drag their dead from the field, and all around us, except on the water-side, was long grass and reeds; two were left dead, and these we buried.