Mr. J. H. Wedge, surveyor to the Batman Association, declared that Pye was so exhausted by fatigue that his companions abandoned him on the banks of the Yarra, and that Warner left Buckley near Indented Head, intending, if possible, to retrace his steps and return to surrender himself at the encampment. But it is difficult to imagine upon what grounds Mr. Wedge felt himself justified in making such a statement. However, when Buckley was left to himself, he was driven to desperate straits to provide food, and took to the coast as the most likely place where he could find sustenance. Crayfish he caught in abundance, and such with wild berries formed his staff of life for some months until he was discovered by the natives. The story of his affiliation with the "black brotherhood" is also differently told. According to one authority he possessed himself of the abandoned "mia-mia" of a tribe, near which was the grave of a native chief. From this a fragment of a spear protruded, and Buckley appropriating it, and meeting some savages a few days after, on recognizing the spear, they fancied that the defunct dead man had resumed existence in the wonderful apparition that stared at them, and, so to speak, they received him with open arms and ever after treated him with marked kindness and consideration. Next it was alleged that he was first seen by three native women, wh presented their treasure-trove to the males of the tribe. He bore in his hand portion of a spear, and exhibiting some resemblance to a deceased chief named Murragark, he was hailed and welcomed as a new revised whitewashed edition of the great departed. A third version is supplied by the following memo, obtained by Mr. Robert Russell from Mr. Thomas Jackson of St. Kilda, in August, 1878 :—
"He saw Buckley in Hobart Town in 1851. He said he could show him where there was gold in the Cape Otway Ranges. On going round the harbour he had taken a staff from a grave and walked with it in his hand, when a native woman recognizing it as having belonged to her husband, Buckley was immediately taken to be him, a 'Jumped up white fellow.'"
Buckley, like a true philosopher, made a virtue of necessity, and soon fell into the ways of the new people. With a facility not to be expected from a person of rather dull comprehension, he rapidly acquired a thorough acquaintance with their language, and gradually became quite satisfied with their mode of life, clothed in an opossum skin, and relishing all their "delicacies," such as grubs and raw flesh. He lived in every way as one of them. Food was always supplied to him, and he took no part in procuring it. He meddled not in their quarrels, nor joined against the enemies of his tribe. In fact, he appears to have ate, drunk, and slept for the space of two and thirty years, seemingly contented, if not happy, and stolidly reconciled to his fate.
There is also much diversity of opinion as to the number of Buckley's Aboriginal wives and children, some averring that he had only one, others two, and others more partners, whilst his offspring are rated at from none to several. According to Mr. John Morgan, of Hobart Town, who wrote a rather fanciful sketch of the "Wild White Man's Aboriginal Existence," Buckley's first "rib" was a buxom widow of twenty, and they dwelt in a sylvan retreat on the banks of the Karraf (the junction of the Moorabool and Barwon). But his hymeneal happiness did not see out the honeymoon, for one evening, while the recently consorted pair were secluded in the domesticity of their loosely constructed abode, the bower of bliss was rushed by half-a-dozen young bloods, who abducted the lady, not very much against her consent, the bereaved Benedict taking his loss very quietly. Her career, however, had a speedy and tragic termination, for she commenced to play some tricks upon her new possessor, which he unceremoniously paid off by sending a spear through her heart.
Buckley's loneliness was quickly cheered by the appearance of a sprightly young woman—a runaway from a neighbouring tribe—and having hastily struck up a match, they shifted their quarters to a cavern at Point Lonsdale, still pointed out to sea-side visitors as "Buckley's Cave," which, judging from a five minutes' sojourn there, I must pronounce to be about the most comfortless hole that ever two human beings burrowed in. If Fawkner is to be believed, Buckley "had several wives among the native women and a number of children;" but "Johnny" never took kindly to Buckley, because the latter had attached himself to the Fawknerian rival—Batman, for whom he entertained a sincere liking, and when intelligence of Batman's death reached Hobart Town and Buckley heard it "he threw himself on his bed and cried bitterly." In 1835 Buckley was said to have two "lubras." As to his
