Page:Narrativeavoyag01wilsgoog.djvu/139

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DARING ACT OF A BUSHRANGER.
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wise would have passed heavily away; more particularly from my former shipmate and friend, Lieutenant Robert Campbell, with whom I had visited many interesting scenes, in various parts of the world[1].

Captain Barker forwarded by Captain Laws information of the abandonment of the settlement to Admiral Gage, the Commander in Chief, requesting him to give information thereof to the Dutch Governor of Macassar, to prevent the disappointment that the Malays might experience, by bringing articles of traffic (as they had promised) to Raffles' Bay, in the ensuing season.

Tuesday, August 18th.—Another prisoner took to the bush this morning, and during the course of the day, two others followed his example. Between seven and eight o'clock in the evening, while I was walking from the fort to the cottage, in company with Dr. Davis, the piercing lamentations of a pig were distinctly heard, and shortly afterwards, a flash was seen. Presently, my boy informed me he had heard a "row" in the stock-yard, and that one of the Bushrangers had "bolted" with a young pig. We gave the alarm, and the settlement was soon in commotion. A Serjeant, and several soldiers, marched, in battle array, into the woods; but, in a short time, returned.

It appears, by this daring act, that the bushrangers are

  1. I received from him a collection of books, exactly similar to many I had lost,—being purchased at the same time, and from the same bookseller, in the gay Parthenope. On seeing them ranged in my apartment, I occasionally forgot that I had left my own copies in Torres Straits.