or two afterwards, being at Yarra-Bandini, a gin, who had been sent from our station on some message, returned in a great hurry, glistening with moisture from having swam across the creek, as she had seen the Tryal Bay tribe, who were coming up to fight the natives at our place. She had scarcely bonnded away from ns to warn them of the approach of their enemies, when the latter appeared, marching in Indian file, having their bodies painted with red stripes, and their bark shields whitened with pipeclay and adorned with double red crosses. They advanced with a measured tramp, carrying their spears aloft at a uniform slope, with their shields on the left side. They had just arrived where we were standing, when the Yarra-Bandini blacks, having been warned by the gin of the approach of their enemies, dashed out of the adjoining brush, and, throwing themselves into regular rows five or six deep, commenced a furious dance in defiance of the other party, leaping up and down at a measured tread, whilst they beat time with their nulla-nullas and waddies, accompanying each jump with a short loud shout. As soon as their adversaries had arrived opposite them, each party halted, whilst the chief men on both sides advanced, and commenced a most animated dialogue, occasionally threatening each other with their spears. A very old woman, whom the Tryal Bay blacks had brought up with them, seemed to be particularly active in abusing and insulting the Yarra-Bandini natives, whom she railed at unceasingly in a loud, screaming voice. As the Australian Aborigines look upon their women as very inferior animals to themselves, I suppose the Tryal Bay tribe had brought up this scolding old lady in order to evince the greater contempt for the other tribe; much on the same principle which once induced a king of France to send a defiance to an English prince by a scullion, instead of a herald, in order to insult him the more grievously. After a long altercation, the two hostile tribes mingled together as though they were on the best terms with each other; they encamped, however, for the night at some distance apart. Next morning the fight commenced, in which, according to the usual custom, the three natives who had been the original cause of the quarrel stood prominently forward, exposed to the spears of the Tryal Bay blacks for some time, without receiving any assistance from their companions, until one of them received a spear wound on the instep and another on the knee. The fight then became general, but no further damage was done, as each party was equally adroit in warding off with their shields the missiles that were flying about. This engagement seemed to conclude the quarrel between the Yarra-Bandini and Yarra-Hapinni blacks, as the gin, Dilberree, who had been carried off, was restored to her friends. It was, however, some time before the other quarrels which had arisen from this affair were fought out; after which a general peace had to be consolidated by solemn corrobborees, danced successively on the grounds of each of the belligerent tribes. Although the Aborigines are, in general, so honorable and open in their warfare with one another, their behaviour towards the whites is very different, being often treacherous in the extreme. It frequently happens that those persons who have been most liberal and kind to the natives are chosen as their first victims; for if a white man gives a present to a native without stipulating for some service in return, the latter imputes the generosity of the
