As a matter of fact, I handed over the bird-skins to Yamba, and she, with her bone needles and threads of kangaroo sinews, soon made a couple of extraordinary but most serviceable garments, which we immediately took back to the poor girls, who were shivering with cold and neglect.

I at once saw the reason of most of their suffering.
Their own clothing had apparently been lost or destroyed, and the native women, jealous of the attention which the chief was bestowing upon the newcomers, gave them little or no food.

Nor did the jealous wives instruct the interlopers in the anointing of their bodies with that peculiar kind of clay which forms so effective a protection alike against the burning heat of the sun, the treacherous cold of the night-winds, and the painful attacks of insects.

All the information I could elicit from the girls that evening was the fact that they had been shipwrecked, and had already been captive among the blacks for three and a half months.
The elder girl further said that they were not allowed their liberty, because they had on several occasions tried to put an end to their indescribable sufferings by committing suicide.

Anything more extraordinary than the costumes we made for the girls you never saw.