[Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central Australia And by Edward John Eyre]@TWC D-Link book
Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central Australia And

CHAPTER XIV
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One old man alone (called Mumma) came up to our camp, and remained with us for several days; he was one of the few who had accompanied us so far from the neighbourhood of Denial Bay, and seemed to have taken a great fancy to us.

We now endeavoured to reward him for his former services, by giving him a red shirt, a blanket, and a tomahawk, and whenever we got our meals he joined us, eating and drinking readily any thing we gave him--tea, broth, pease soup, mutton, salt pork, rice, damper, sugar, dried fruits, were all alike to him, nothing came amiss, and he appeared to grow better in condition every day.
At last he too got tired of remaining so long in one place; the novelty had worn away, and packing up his things he left us.

During the time this man had been with us, I took the opportunity of ascertaining whether the King George's Sound native, Wylie, could understand him, but I found he could not.

There were one or two words common to both, but the general character, meaning, and sound of the two languages were so very different upon comparison, that I could myself understand the old man much better than Wylie could.
Whilst remaining in depot, the whole party were one day suddenly seized with a severe attack of illness, accompanied with vomiting and violent pain in the stomach, and I began to fear that we had unknowingly taken some deleterious ingredient in our food, as all were seized in the same way; this attack continued for several days, without our being able to discover the cause of it, but at last by changing the sugar we were using, we again got well.

It appeared that a new bag of sugar had been broached about the time we were first attacked, and upon inspecting it, we found the bag quite wet--something or other of a deleterious character having been spilled over it, and which had doubtless caused us the inconvenience we experienced.


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