their own wants. They now collect fuel cheerfully, and assist in cooking, making bread, &c, and a soldier's wife teaches the women to wash.—In the course of the day a sealer from Guncarriage Island, came and took away a child that he had had by a native woman, now married to a man of her own nation, on the Settlement: he would not be persuaded to leave the little girl under the care of its mother, who was greatly distressed at parting with it.
Late in the evening we visited the Aborigines in the three huts or "breakwinds " that have been erected for them; these are built of spars, and thatched with rushes: they resemble roofs, and have an aperture along the ridge, for the escape of smoke. These, with a few cottages of similar materials, for the soldiers and prisoner boats-crew, and some weather-board huts, occupied by the Commandant, Surgeon, &c, and a tent used by a Surveyor, form the Settlement at this place, which is called The Lagoons. In each of the huts of the natives, there were tires along the centre, around which they were lying, in company with their dogs, which are good tempered like themselves. On our entering the people sat up, and began to sing their native songs—sometimes the men, at others the women—with much animation of countenance and gesture. This they kept up to a late hour: they are said often to continue their singing till midnight. To me, their songs were not unpleasing: persons skilled in music consider them harmonious.
11th. The men having been requested to cease from wearing "bal-de-winny," that is red ochre and grease, in their hair, they had signified a willingness to do so, if they might have some other covering for their heads; and to-day, according to a previous agreement, Scotch Caps were distributed among them, with which they were much delighted. In these they seemed to perceive a similarity to the headdress of the military, and they immediately arranged themselves in a rank! They are very docile, and having noticed that the soldiers always went to inform the Commandant when going off the Settlement, they have adopted a similar practice, of their own accord. They neither exhibit the intellectual nor the physical degradation, that have been
