Author: Buckley, William
Title: Reminiscenses of James Buckley who lived for thirty years among the Wallawarro or Watourong tribes at Geelong Port Phillip, communicated by him to George Langhorne, manuscript
Date: [1837]
Accession Number: MS13483
Transcript Number: pp0019-004-0
Thumbnails | Image | Transcript

Information about ordering a copy of this item
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/ordering

Information about permission to use this item
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/permission

Start new search
View record for this item
Information about ordering a copy of this item
Information about permission to use this item

< Previous 1 … 4 … 12 Next >

I made known my plan to two other prisoners and
we all three succeeded in cutting away a boat and
making our escape in her to the shore - where we
left her to her fate and ran up the country -
we pursued our way up the Port - as far
as the Yarra River until near were Melbourne
now stands and having by this time consumed [all]
the small stock of Provisions we brought with us we
left a tea kettle and other articles behind us on the Bank
and struck into the Bush. I wished to direct our
course to the Northward in hopes by so doing to reach
Sydney which I believed was not far off - here we differed
and my two companions taking one direction I took
the other - when however I had gone some little distance
my heart failed me and in a desponding frame of mind
I again directed my steps towards the sea and at
length reached the Heads of the Bay in a state
of considerable exhaustion for afraid as yet to
eat all the wild berries that came in my way not
being acquainted with their properties and supposing
some of them poisonous - I subsisted principally on
crawfish - suffering much from thirst - on reaching
the coast I in vain looked for the Ship it had
probably been gone some time - up to this period
I had not seen any of the natives but at length
I fell in with an Old Black - fishing near the sea
with his wife and a large family of children - by
this savage I was treated with the greatest kindness
partook of their food and laboured with them.
I gradually [illegible word] became capable of expressing my
wants in their language. I left this old man and
wandered further into the Country - and then fell
in with several more families of Blacks - our meeting