of carrying off the native women, and of shooting the men who endeavoured to defend them." This refers to the iniquitous band of Kangaroo Island. There was a settlement of forty persons, of both colours and sexes, indulging in vices to an extent only limited by their passions and means. Major Lockyer may well report: "At Kangaroo Island a dreadful scene of villany is going on, where, to use their own words, 'there are a great many deaths.'" He describes them as a regular set of pirates, traversing from island to island along the coast, from Rottnest Island, Swan River, to Bass's Strait, but having their chief den in Kangaroo Island. When the sealing season was over, the party retired to a sheltered valley of the interior to their gardens and fields, surrounded by a landscape of loveliness, and enjoying a climate of almost unequalled attractiveness.
There is an amusing tale given in an early number of the Adelaide Miscellany relating to one of these Kangaroo Island sealers, who removed with his worldly goods to Flinders Island.
"A native of the Emerald Isle, named Brien, made a descent on the mainland and carried off a native female to share with him the sway of Flinders Island; for of that island he had constituted himself sole monarch. The woman had with her a son, then about twelve months old. Brien was, according to custom, about to kill the boy; but the entreaties of the mother on this occasion prevailed, and he said, 'As he had stolen the dam he would keep the cub.' In a, few years, Bill (for that was the name conferred on him by his abducer) became very useful to Brien. He could handle an oar, help to capture a seal, discharge a rifle with precision, and execute any manual labour with the efficiency of a European youth. His habits became those of his teacher, and the few ideas he managed to acquire were derived from the same source, In the occasional absence of the old sealer, he was not a bad hand at bartering skins and melons for garments, tobacco, or spirits, with the crew of some whale ship cruising in the neighbourhood. His own language he never knew, after a few years he forgot it; but instead, he imbibed the rich brogue of old Brien. His first interview with his own countrymen amused me excessively. I introduced him as a brother native, but they denied the soft impeachment. I asked, 'Is he then a white man?' To which they replied, in a patois consisting of about equal portions of European and native,
