From the circumstances of Stiles having thrown away part of his clothes, and having made such a large quantity of dough to bake into dampers at the first convenient opportunity, together with various expressions he had dropped in the presence of the men, there could be no doubt but that he had purposely quitted the party; yet to abandon him to his fate amongst natives, who were by no means friendly in their gestures and appearance, required a degree of resolution I was unprepared at that moment to exercise. To leave him without a search was to sacrifice one life, to allow one man to perish, whilst occupying one or two days in looking for him would merely increase the temporary sufferings of the rest; whilst the loss of time would probably occasion no other bad result than a little more personal privation; and this, in order to try to save the life of a fellow-creature, I conceived it to be my own duty and that of the rest of the party to undergo. Influenced by these reasons I desired all hands to prepare to start in search of Stiles. Strange however to say, my resolution was scarcely made known ere much grumbling arose; and this chiefly amongst those men who had lately been loudest in their praises of the system of only marching a few miles a day and occasionally halting for a day or two where we could get native roots to eat, in fact, amongst those whose foolish ideas had led Stiles to desert the party. We however moved on in the direction of the spot where Kaiber had lost the tracks, and on our way over the high ground we met a native with his spear and a handful of fish; he was lost in thought and we were close to him before he saw us: when he did so he took no notice whatever of us, but without even quickening his pace continued in his original line of direction, which crossed ours obliquely. As he evidently did not wish to communicate with us I directed the men not to take the least notice of him, and thus we passed one another. He must have been a very brave fellow to act so coolly as he did when an array so strange to him met his eye. ANOTHER PARTY OF NATIVES.