第9章

Indeed,Arabanoo's behaviour,during the whole of the transactions of this day,was so strongly marked by affection to his countryman,and by confidence in us,that the governor resolved to free him from all farther restraint,and at once to trust to his generosity,and the impression which our treatment of him might have made,for his future residence among us:the fetter was accordingly taken off his leg.

In the evening,captain Ball and I crossed the harbour,and buried the corpse of the woman before mentioned.

Distress continued to drive them in upon us.Two more natives,one of them a young man,and the other his sister,a girl of fourteen years old,were brought in by the governor's boat,in a most deplorable state of wretchedness from the smallpox.The sympathy and affection of Arabanoo,which had appeared languid in the instance of Nanbaree and his father,here manifested themselves immediately.We conjectured that a difference of the tribes to which they belonged might cause the preference;but nothing afterwards happened to strengthen or confirm such a supposition.

The young man died at the end of three days:the girl recovered,and was received as an inmate,with great kindness,in the family of Mrs Johnson,the clergyman's wife.Her name was Booron;but from our mistake of pronunciation she acquired that of Abaroo,by which she was generally known,and by which she will always be called in this work.

She shewed,at the death of her brother more feeling than Nanbaree had witnessed for the loss of his father.When she found him dying,she crept to his side,and lay by him until forced by the cold to retire.

No exclamation,or other sign of grief,however,escaped her for what had happened.

May 1789.At sunset,on the evening of the 2d instant,the arrival the 'Sirius',Captain Hunter,from the Cape of Good Hope,was proclaimed,and diffused universal joy and congratulation.The day of famine was at least procrastinated by the supply of flour and salt provisions she brought us.

The 'Sirius'had made her passage to the Cape of Good Hope,by the route of Cape Horn,in exactly thirteen weeks.Her highest latitude was 57degrees 10minutes south,where the weather proved intolerably cold.Ice,in great quantity,was seen for many days;and in the middle of December (which is correspondent to the middle of June,in our hemisphere),water froze in open casks upon deck,in the moderate latitude of 44degrees.

They were very kindly treated by the Dutch governor,and amply supplied by the merchants at the Cape,where they remained seven weeks.Their passage back was effected by Van Diemen's Land,near which,and close under Tasman's Head,they were in the utmost peril of being wrecked.

In this long run,which had extended round the circle,they had always determined their longitude,to the greatest nicety,by distances taken between the sun and moon,or between the moon and a star.But it falls to the lot of very few ships to possess such indefatigable and accurate observers as Captain Hunter,and Mr.(now Captain)Bradley,the first lieutenant of the 'Sirius'.

I feel assured,that I have no reader who will not join in regretting the premature loss of Arabanoo,who died of the smallpox on the 18th instant,after languishing in it six days.From some imperfect marks and indents on his face,we were inclined to believe that he had passed this dreaded disorder.Even when the first symptoms of sickness seized him,we continued willing to hope that they proceeded from a different cause.

But at length the disease burst forth with irresistible fury.