crawfish excepted, almost the only kind of river fish that was procurable at Barladong.
At Fremantle fishermen were rewarded by finding good snapper and mullet, which were excellent when dried and salted, and seldom made their appearance in our town in any other condition, being hawked for sale by a lively youth, who never failed to recommend his ware by biting pieces off the specimen fish which he carried in his hand as a sample.
Besides crawfish and coblers, our river boasted of freshwater turtles, which looked so hideous, with their snakelike necks longer than their shell-clad bodies, that I was content to take on trust all that had been told me of the goodness of turtle broth, without wishing to test its merits personally.
The eggs which this creature lays are white, and very long in proportion to their breadth. Binnahan once brought in an apronful of turtles' eggs that she had found beside the river, but instead of sucking them raw, as I had expected her to do, she begged that she might be allowed to fry them, being apparently under the impression that one sort of egg was as fit to cook as another. The frying-pan was accordingly placed at her disposal, but I did not inspect the cookery, and I noticed that she never repeated the experiment.
We soon found that a native, if treated with kindness and consideration, would become much attached to his employers and give proof of a most affectionate disposition, an experience confirmed by others who had spent their whole lives in the colony. Khourabene had become fond of my husband very soon after his first acquaintance
