The two Tommies still remained to be provided for, and they were both desirous of accompanying me to England. I had seriously intended to take one with me but, so docile and so much attached to my service were both of these youths, that I felt much difficulty in choosing between them. Meanwhile they remained at Sydney while official cares and troubles so thickened about me that I at length abandoned my intention, however reluctantly and, when they were about to return at last to their own country, I gave to each what clothes I could spare and they both shed tears when they left my house. They were to travel through the colony under the protection of Charles Hammond, one of my steadiest men who, having obtained his freedom in reward for his services with me, was proceeding towards Bathurst in charge of the teams of a Parcel Delivery Company. BALLANDELLA. The little Ballandella, child of The Widow, was a welcome stranger to my children among whom she remained and seemed to adopt the habits of domestic life con amore, evincing a degree of aptness which promised very favourably. The great expense of the passage home of a large family obliged me at last to leave her at Sydney under the care of my friend Dr. Nicholson who kindly undertook the superintendence of her education during my absence in England. CHARACTER OF THE NATIVES OF THE INTERIOR. My experience enables me to speak in the most favourable terms of the aborigines whose degraded position in the midst of the white population affords no just criterion of their merits. The quickness of apprehension of those in the interior was very remarkable, for nothing in all the complicated adaptations we carried with us either surprised or puzzled them. They are never awkward, on the contrary in manners and general intelligence they appear superior to any class of white rustics that I have seen. LANGUAGE. Their powers of mimicry seem extraordinary, and their shrewdness shines even through the medium of imperfect language and renders them in general very agreeable companions.