254 THE CHRONICLES 1798 upon our approach (the night being odd and rainy, and the diild terrified exceedingly), she was lying with her elbows and knees on the ground covering the child from our sight with her body, or probably sheltering it from the weather, but I rather think on Mother and account of its fears. The little infant could not be prevailed on to look up ; it lay with its face upon the ground, and one hand cover- ing its eyes. We. supplied her as before, with birds, fish, and fuel, and pulled a quantity of grass to make her a comfortable bed, and covered her little miserable hut so as to keep out the weather. The kindly feeling which animated Phillip and his friends in their intercourse with the natives, oonld not be better illustrated than it is in this passage ; nor has tbe part of the good Samaritan ever been more nobly played by British offi- cers. Phillip and Hunter were rough old sailors ; they had been all their lives at sea ; but had they been shepherds with their crooks in the days of pastoral poetry, they could not have shown a finer feeling towards a damsel in distress. The facts, as told by Hunter, deserve to rank among the i^^tatt* pathetic tales of the Australian bush ; none the less touching hvth. because the central figure happens to be carved in ebony. Incidents of this kind should not be forgotten in estimating Phillip's character ; especially when we find it represCTited as wanting in the very quality so conspicuonsly shown in this instance.* ooiuns's Last on the list of the old chronicles is the ponderous work published by Judge-Advocate Collins in two quarto volumes, the first of which appeared in 1798,* and the second in 1802.t There can be no doubt as to the value of the work for historical purposes, seeing that it contains a mass of information with respect to the colony which none of the writer's contemporaries had been diligent enough to collect. But the merit of the compilation is largely affected • Woods, in his History of the Discovery and Exploration of Anstialia (p. 66), expressed the opinion that *' Governor Philhp does not M>pear to have been over endowed with mercy," because there was a good deal of hanffinff and flogging in his time — as if it had all been done at his instance and oy nis order. t Post, p. 689. Digitized by Google
