In the evening, after hauling the seine on the beach without success, we were upon the point of embarking, when we discovered, at about seventy or eighty yards up the hill, the heads of three or four natives peeping above the long grass, evidently watching our movements, and probably awaiting our departure to allow them to go to the morass for water. Wishing very much to communicate with these people, we walked towards them, but they suddenly rose and scampered up the hill among the trees, which were so thick as soon to conceal them from our view. Boongaree called to them in vain; and it was not until they had reached some distance that they answered his call in loud shrill voices. After some time spent in a parley, in which Boongaree was spokesman on our part, sometimes in his own language, and at others in broken English, which he always resorted to when his own failed in being understood, they withdrew altogether, and we neither heard nor saw anything more of them. December 27. The next morning, the wind being easterly, we left the bay. On passing Red Point, twenty or thirty natives came to the extreme point of the cliff, shouting and hallooing and making violent gestures; a large group of women and children appeared in the background, timidly concealing themselves behind the trees and bushes; another party was quietly seated round small fires on the rocks near the sea-beach, apparently engaged in cooking their fish; and at a little distance from the last group, two canoes were hauled upon the rocks. The breeze being fresh from the North-North-East, we made rapid progress; and at three o'clock p.m., rounded Cape Howe, with every prospect of passing through Bass Strait before the wind should again veer to the westward. In passing Cape Howe, we observed large fires burning on the hills, made by the natives for the double purpose of burning off the dry grass and of hunting the kangaroos, which are thus forced to fly from the woods, and thereby fall an easy prey to their pursuers. December 28. The next day at noon, Kent's Group, in the eastern entrance of Bass Strait, was seen; but, at one o'clock, the wind shifted suddenly and blew a gale from South-West, with heavy rain: after beating against it until the following day, we bore up and ran under the lee of Great Island, intending to pass round Van Diemen's Land: at five o'clock, we passed close to the Babel Islands, on which were heaped incredible numbers of sea-birds of various descriptions, each species huddled together in flocks separate from the other. On another part of the island many seals were seen, by the growl of which, and the discordant screams of the birds, a strange confused noise was made, not ill adapted to the name the island bears. December 29.