Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2Grey, George
History
Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2
Grey, George
Natural history -- Australia -- Western Australia; Western Australia -- Discovery and exploration
We therefore approached them but as we came near they withdrew. Kaiber
was now called into consultation; he scrutinised them long and carefully,
and then announced that they were "mondak yoongar," wild natives; and,
after a second survey of them, declared that they had the "mondak kurrang
kombar," or great bush fury, on them, or rather, were subject to wild
untutored rage. After making this announcement he squatted down under a
bush to conceal himself, and then recapitulating rapidly all the dangers
we had gone through, conjured me not to bring him into a fresh scrape by
having anything to do with such a numerous party of his countrymen in our
present weak state.
The men, who understood enough of what he was saying to know that he
thought these natives had never seen Europeans, became extremely uneasy
and begged me to allow them to fire a gun as a signal to them: "For if we
are so near Perth as you suppose, Sir," they said to me, "these natives
will come to us." Kaiber hereupon told me that the instant the gun was
fired he should run away. This was rather too ridiculous a threat when
the coward was afraid to move five yards from us; I therefore ordered a
gun to be fired, and then, telling the men to remain steady and prepared
in case of accident, I walked off towards the natives, Kaiber, in the
meanwhile, sitting on his haunches under cover, muttering to himself,
"The swan, the big head, the stone forehead;" and, as these denunciations
reached me, I could not, even in all my misery, forbear smiling at them.
DISCOVERED TO BE FRIENDS.
The natives no sooner heard the gun and saw me approaching than they came
running to me. Presently Kaiber called out to me, "Mr. Grey, Mr. Grey,
nadjoo watto, nginnee yalga nginnow," "Mr. Grey, Mr. Grey, I am going to
them; you sit here a little;" and he then, with his long thin ungainly
legs, bounded by me like a deer. "Imbat, friend," I heard him cry out, as
a young man came running up to him. I grew giddy; I knew Imbat by name,
and felt assured that at all events the lives of a great portion of my
party were safe. In a few minutes Kaiber had given an outline of our
adventures and present state. Fearing such mischances as had really
happened to me, I had, previously to my departure to the north, done my
utmost to cultivate the friendship of the northern natives; and most of
them, even to the distance of sixty or seventy miles from Perth in that
direction, had received presents from me. My name was well known amongst
them as a tried friend, although indeed my common denomination was
"Wokeley brudder," or Oakley's brother; for, from my giving them flour,
they concluded that I was a relation of the baker of that name at Perth.
HOSPITABLE RECEPTION BY THEM.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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