Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia

Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia Vol. 1 is a work by George Grey. Grey was a British soldier, voyager, colonial administrator and author. Excerpt: «This morning directly after breakfast I read prayers to the men, and then commenced my preparations for the excursion on which I intended to start in the evening. Whilst I was occupied in arranging my papers Mr. Lushington observed two natives sitting on the rocks on the top of the cliffs which overlooked the valley, and gazing down intently on us. The instant that he made friendly signs to them they rose from their seats and began to retreat. Some of the party then called to them and one of the natives answered; but they still moved rapidly away. I would not allow them to be followed for fear of increasing their alarm, and in the hope that they would return, but was disappointed. It must have awakened strange feelings in the breast of these two savages, who could never before have seen civilized man, thus to have sat spectators and overlookers of the every action of such incomprehensible beings as we must have appeared; and the relation to their comrades of the wonders they had witnessed could not have been to them a whit less marvellous than the tales of the grey-headed Irish peasant, when he recounts the freaks of the fairies, „whose midnight revels by the forest side or fountain“ he has watched intently from some shrub-clad hill.»