March 26.--We travelled along the river to lat. 20 degrees 53 minutes 42 seconds. Its course is almost due north. Yesterday, being out duck shooting, we came suddenly upon a camp of natives, who were not a little frightened by the report of our guns: they followed our tracks, however, with wailing cries, and afterwards all of them sat down on the rocky banks of the river, when we returned to our camp. To-day we passed the place of their encampment with our whole train, and it was remarkable that they neither heard nor saw us until we were close to them, though we had seen them from a great distance. All the young ones ran away. Dismounting from my horse, I walked up to an old man who had remained, and who was soon after rejoined by another man. We had a long unintelligible conversation, for neither Brown nor Charley could make out a single word of their language. They were much surprised by the different appearance of Charley's black skin and my own. Phillips wished to exchange his jacket for one of their opossum cloaks, so I desired him to put it on the ground, and then taking the cloak and placing it near the jacket, I pointed to Phillips, and, taking both articles up, handed the cloak to Phillips and the jacket to our old friend, who perfectly understood my meaning. After some time he expressed a wish to have the cloak back, and to keep the jacket, with which we had dressed him; but I gave him to understand that he might have his cloak, provided he returned the jacket; which arrangement satisfied him. A basket (dilli), which I examined, was made of a species of grass which, according to Charley, is found only on the sea coast. We saw a Tabiroo (Mycteria) and a rifle bird. The morning was cloudy, but very hot. Numerous heavy cumuli formed during the afternoon.