Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land, 1830-1840 - Page 219
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[Page 219]
The Oyster Bay tribe, fourteen in number, surrendered at Pipers' River in 1831, and shortly after the Port Sorell Blacks, also fourteen, both expeditions under the immediate supera superintendence of Mr Robinson.
The mission then traversed the country from the Eastern marshes to Bashan's plains to the westward of the River Shannon and the River Ouse. From the plains the party made for Marlborough, a site which was then laid out for a township, but not settled. Here were seen a very great number of native huts.
About this place the Mission fell in with the most ferocious of all the tribes that of the "Big River" with [indecipherable] their chief. a very stout well made and good looking man; he ca his own spears were each eighteen feet long, and very thick. The number of Blacks amounted to twenty six seven, fourteen men, twelve women, and a child.
If ever the mission was exposed to danger and instant death, it was at this awful moment, they were unarmed, and the hostile Aborigines surrounded them with menacing gestures, and threatening them with destruction. Each man was armed with