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Baneelon once showed us a cave, the top of which had fallen in and buried under its ruins, seven people who were sleeping under it. To descend; is not even the ridiculous superstition of Colbee related in one of our journies to the Hawkesbury? And again the following instance. Abaroo was sick.
I have in vain tried to stimulate Baneelon, Colbee, and the other natives who live among us, to bring in the aggressor.
Colbee, who was certainly, in other respects a good tempered merry fellow, made no scruple of treating Daringa, who was a gentle creature, thus. Baneelon did the same to Barangaroo, but she was a scold and a vixen, and nobody pitied her.
His head was disfigured by several scars; a spear had passed through his arm, and another through his leg. Half of one of his thumbs was carried away; and the mark of a wound appeared on the back of his hand. The cause and attendant circumstances of all these disasters, except one, he related to us. "But the wound on the back of your hand, Baneelon! How did you get that?"
And soon after Colbee came up, pointing to his leg, to show that he had freed himself from the fetter which was upon him, when he had escaped from us. When Baneelon was told that the governor was not far off, he expressed great joy, and declared that he would immediately go in search of him, and if he found him not, would follow him to Sydney. "Have you brought any hatchets with you?" cried he.
The same scenes of awkward wonder and impatient constraint, which had attended the introduction of Arabanoo, succeeded. Baneelon we judged to be about twenty-six years old, of good stature, and stoutly made, with a bold intrepid countenance, which bespoke defiance and revenge.
It was reasonable to believe that so powerful a reinforcement would restore tranquillity, but Baneelon stood unintimidated at disparity of numbers and boldly demanded his prisoner, whose life, he told the governor, he was determined to sacrifice, and afterwards to cut off her head. Everyone was eager to know what could be the cause of such inveterate inhumanity.
Our friend Baneelon, during this season of scarcity, was as well taken care of as our desperate circumstances would allow. We knew not how to keep him, and yet were unwilling to part with him. Had he penetrated our state, perhaps he might have given his countrymen such a description of our diminished numbers, and diminished strength, as would have emboldened them to become more troublesome.
Inexplicable contradictions arose to bewilder our researches which no ingenuity could unravel and no credulity reconcile. Baneelon, from being accustomed to our manners, and understanding a little English, was the person through whom we wished to prosecute inquiry, but he had lately become a man of so much dignity and consequence, that it was not always easy to obtain his company.
On being asked the cause of their present meeting, Baneelon pointed to the whale, which stunk immoderately, and Colbee made signals, that it was common among them to cat until the stomach was so overladen as to occasion sickness. Their demand of hatchets being re-iterated, notwithstanding our refusal, they were asked why they had not brought with them some of their own?
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