boats that took part in it, one was from Hobart Town. On its passage to the straits, the crew put in for one night at the Eddystone boat harbour, at a moment when the Cape Portland tribe were hunting there. The boat's crew, as too usual with sailors, were a careless set of fellows, and not thinking in the least of danger, kept no lookout for squalls of any kind when ashore; and after forming a rude shelter for the night, retired within to refresh, a good while before dusk, leaving their boat at anchor, but with the stern-fast ashore. The men of the Cape Portland tribe were just the reverse of our sailors, that is, they were ever on the watch, either to do mischief to others or avoid danger, and had no difficulty in surprising the strangers, who, all at once, found their place of refuge encircled by a cordon of armed savages. Our sailors tired a random shot or two, and then ran to their boat, amidst such a whizzing of spears, as they had not dreamed of hearing when they landed. Luckily for them it had grown pretty dark by this time, and the usually fine aim of the black was not very true. The crew reached the boat and got off, but some of them were very badly wounded.
Many boats and scores of homesteads were thus surprised every year by "the poor benighted down trodden savages," as it was the fasion of silly despatch-writers and sentimental pamphleteers to style this clever but sanguinary race of men, who were the aggressors in nearly every skirmish, who for many years kept the colony in a greater state of alarm than the bushrangers did, and whose final extinction was far more due to a combination of disastrous natural causes converging simultaneously on their camps, than to the bullet of the white settler, or even the extraordinary daring and judgment of Mr. Robinson.
After the above described specimen of native subtlety, the Hobart Town sealing party stuck to their boat till they reached the straits islands, not again touching the mainland during their voyage. They skirted along the north eastern shore of Cape Barren Island, and eventually landed on Guncarriage, where Tucker had his home, and where he unhappily was then to receive them.
He was never slow or chary of giving his assistance to any one visiting his island home, more especially to men in distress like these new arrivals were; and he now collected a few other fellows to help them unload their boat and beach her, which done, he conducted them to his neat little cottage, that stood near the landing place.
"What's up with you?" was his first enquiry after they were settled down in his cottage, "What's the matter. Some of you seem badly hurt."
