Although the affair had so far terminated well I was by no means sure that Peerat might not after my departure induce the others to attempt a rescue. I therefore hurried on to the spot where I had left my European friend, but I only found a slip of paper on a tree, with the following words on it: "Returned slowly to the settlement." We moved rapidly on again and reached Albany without further adventure, and on our arrival I lodged Dalbean in the jail. January 24. Peerat did not bring in his wives, and to all the solicitations which were offered me on the part of the natives for the release of my little prisoner I answered that, when Peerat's wives were brought in and given over to the hands of justice, I would punish the boy and release him; but if the other delinquents were not given up I should conceive it to be a sign that the natives were not satisfied with my decision, and therefore send the boy on to Swan River to be tried. I further added that, if Peerat did not in the course of the next day appear with his wives, I should cease to act as mediator, and taking a party of soldiers would go out and apprehend him. HIS ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE. January 25. This morning information was given me that little Dalbean had made an attempt to break out of jail. I therefore went up to the jail with another magistrate and found that the little fellow had yesterday, during the absence of the turnkey, taken up a loose stone from the floor and had battered a hole in the door with it. It evinced altogether more strength and determination than one could have supposed such a boy to have been endowed with. When I taxed him with it he stoutly denied it, asserting that whilst he was asleep sorcerers from the north, who had a spite against him, had entered the cell through some airholes in the wall and had done this; and in spite of all our cross-questioning and charging him with falsehood he still persisted in the same tale, and really appeared to think that he could persuade us of the truth of the assertion. I told him that it was his duty to have taken care that these sorcerers had not injured the door, and that in future if he did not give the alarm when they came he should be well whipped for neglect, and that in the meantime I had a great mind to have him whipped for telling a story; I however satisfied myself by giving him a severe lecture upon the crime of lying. He defended himself upon this head by ingenious arguments, altogether overlooking the abstract question of whether lying was a virtue or a vice, and defending himself solely upon the plea of its general usefulness and prevalence in the world. I got rather worsted in the argument, and therefore, confining myself to admonitions and a few common-place maxims, I departed. PEERAT'S WIVES SURRENDERED. THEIR PUNISHMENT.