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THE LAST OF THE TASMANIANS.

the men by themselves, or with the native women. Thus we have, "The women left this morning with Gunner, Pigeon, Crook, and Black Bill, to scour the country." For reasons not explained the women "expressed a wish to go away by themselves." They promised to bring in the tribe if permitted to travel alone, and the leader started them from the east end of Ben Lomond. He gave them complete supplies, besides "three dogs, knives, pipes, &c., to carry with them." Three men took the burden some considerable distance for them. His faith was strong in their intentions, for we have him writing: "I have every hope of the women bringing in their tribe." His confidence was not misplaced. When he sent either his European or Sydney men with them, he would not permit them to take fire-arms. Mr. Robinson was not alone in his belief in moral suasion.

Occasionally he was directed to go in pursuit of some murderous gang. He came too late to catch the murderers of three men at Major Gray's. Hearing of a mob attacking Mr. Hooper's place, he rode hastily off. His day's record says: "The house surrounded by Natives. I galloped down, and the whole of them fled. The first thing we saw was the dead body of Mr. Hooper, and a great number of goods lying outside the house."

He was quite ready to acknowledge something to the credit of the foes of the settlers. Ordered off to another reported scene of outrage, where it was said that Mr. Newland's man had been killed, he arrived, "and found the whole of it to be false. The man (who originated the story) was a cripple, or I should have taken him before a magistrate." Another notice evidences his good feeling: "They went also into a house where a woman was, took one blanket, and did not hurt her. This shows they do not commit murders when they might." After another ride, upon a report, he returned, as he wrote, "without seeing the least trace of the Natives, and think the whole of the reports to be false."

Among the walking feats, we have noticed fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five miles a day. The wet and cold sorely tried them, but the snow, three or four feet thick for a week at a time, shut them up in their secluded mountain hut, or detained them on the lower plains.

There was under the rough exterior of this powerful Bushman no small share of the tenderness belonging more to the other