equal to them. A captain of a ship, in the
harbour of Port Jackson, once lost a case
of claret overboard: a six-dozen case. The
ship was anchored in eight fathoms of water,
Four blacks dived down and brought it up,
each man holding a corner of the chest on
the palm of his left hand. Incredible as it may
seem, they were under the surface of the stream
for more than three minutes. I can remember,
one day, when out with King Bungaree in his
boat, losing a penknife, with which I was cutting
bait on the gunwale. Queen Onion cried out,
"I get it!" and, dropping from the boat's bows
in her bedgown, she lifted her hands and went
down like a stone or a shot. After being lost to
sight for at least a minute and a half, up she
came, like a bundle of old clothes, with the
penknife in her mouth. We were then fishing off
Garden Island, where the water is very deep, I
doubt if there were less than fifteen fathoms
under our keel.

The power of "tracking" was still left to
old King Bungaree and his tribe, but they
rarely or never exercised it. Their savage and
simple natures had been contaminated and
corrupted by their more civilised fellow-creatures,
and their whole thoughts seemed to be centred
in how they could most speedily become intoxicated
and sleep off its effects. Bread and rum,
Bungaree said, were at first distasteful to his
palate; but, after a while, he "liked 'em berry
much, and did not care for nothing else." King
Bungaree was the only old aboriginal I ever saw
in the vicinity of Sydney. Drink, and its effects,
destroyed the majority of both sexes long before
they attained the prime of life. How the race
continued to be propagated within fifty miles
of Sydney, even when I last left the colony, in
1843, was more than I can understand. It was
otherwise, however, in the far distant interior.
Some of the wild tribes in the squatting
districts (where rum and tobacco were too
precious to be given to the blacks, either out of
freak or a misplaced generosity), were as fine
specimens of the human shape as any sculptor
could desire as models. In addition to the
elegance of their forms, their eyes were brilliant
and piercing, their teeth white as snow, their
agility superhuman, and their love of innocent
mirth perfectly childlike.

Of King Bungaree's principles and opinions
I scarcely know what to say: nor even, as his
biographer, am I particularly anxious to dilate
on the subject. But, I may mention that he one
day confessed to me that of all the governors who
ever swayed the destinies of New South Wales,
General Macquarie was the greatest man. On
probing him for his reasons, I discovered that
the kind-hearted old officer, whom he held in
such respect and veneration, was his greatest
creditor. The general, according to his
Majesty's account (and I believe him implicitly),
had "lent" him more cocked-hats, more coats,
more shirts, more loaves of bread, and more
glasses of grog, than any other ruler in
Australia; and, further, he told me it was General
Macquarie who "lent" him that brass plate
which he wore for so many, many years, and
which was, no doubt, found on his Majesty's
breast when he breathed his last.

OCCASIONAL REGISTER.

WANTED

A LOUD GROAN for the Prime Minister
who brings the Peerage into additional
disrepute among the people, by closing the doors
of the House of Lords on Sir JOHN LAWRENCE,
whose merit is that he saved India; and opening
them to three country gentlemen, whose merit
is that they have plenty of money.

ROOM ENOUGH TO GET ALONG IN,
by all the vehicles in all the principal
streets of the city of London.

IN THE NAME OF COMMON
DECENCY, a Domestic-Lodging-Houses Act.
At Whitechapel, at Bethnal-green, and in other
poor districts of this metropolis, single rooms
are occupied by fathers, mothers, brothers,
sisters, husbands, wives, and strangers of both
sexes and of all ages, huddled together in a state
of unutterable filth and degradation, ruinous
to themselves, disgraceful to the Legislature,
and perilous to the country. The shocking
exposure of facts to which attention is now
directed, is set down, in black and white, in the
reliable pages of a late official Report.

MISSING

ALL THE MOVABLE AND PORTABLE
ARTICLES belonging to The Great
Eastern, stripped away and stolen by a number
of shamelessly mean and mischievous people, who
were allowed to see the ship, and who disgraced
themselves and their countrymen by picking and
stealing like common thieves.

FOUND

TWO HONEST PERSONS in the ranks of
Trade. One, the late Thomas Fleming,
shawl manufacturer of Edinburgh, who, finding
his affairs involved, in the panic of 1825,
abstained from taking the bankrupt's refuge; and
worked unremittingly for the rest of his life,
until he had paid the greater part of his creditors
in full, at the time of his death. The other,
Thomas Fleming's widow, who has honestly
followed her honest husband's last directions,
and has paid the remaining creditors, out of the
proceeds of her husband's estate and her own.

TO COME.

WHAT is to come when we have lived to-morrow?
What fortunes crowd within the coming day?
Shall grief's sharp fingers score another furrow?
Or triumph bathe us in its glorious ray?
What is to come?

Fond dreams untold, and sweeter joys untasted!
Are ye to welcome in the unborn time?
Or failure prove the fruit of hours wasted,
And lead to age the too believing time?
What is to come?