The Explorers (10 page)

On the 24th of January, Governor Phillip, having sufficiently explored Port Jackson and found it in all respects highly calculated to receive such a settlement as he was appointed to establish, returned to Botany Bay. On his arrival there, the reports made to him, both of the ground which the people were clearing, and of the upper parts of the bay, which in this interval had been more particularly examined, were in the greatest degree unfavourable. It was impossible after this to hesitate concerning the choice of a situation; and orders were accordingly issued for the removal of the whole fleet to Port Jackson.

† Murry: great.

† Possibly the mitchell River

† King Sound.

† Manatee: Dampier is referring to the dugong.

†† Hodmadods: the Hottentots of South Africa.

† A hardwood, thought previously to have great medicinal qualities.

†† These were quokkas.

† The first European sighting of a kangaroo. Previous explorers had seen only various kinds of wallabies.

†† This was probably the black flying fox.

††† The midshipman was James Maria Magra (Matra). He probably saw a dingo.

† Tupia was a Tahitian who had joined the expedition. The animals they saw were probably a dingo and flying foxes.

A
RTHUR
B
OWES
S
MYTH

The Golden Age, 1788

Of all the parts of Australia, just two tiny specks were truly virgin lands in 1788. Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean would remain unsettled until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, while people first stepped onto Lord Howe Island four months after the Europeans settled at Sydney Cove. Lord Howe Island was discovered by ships of the First Fleet, drawn there after hearing that the French mariner La Perouse had seen great flocks of seabirds in the area.

The infant colony was desperately short of food, and Lord Howe proved to be an extraordinarily well-stocked larder. The birds were superabundant and entirely tame. Some species had lost the ability to fly. Smyth's account gives us a glimpse of how the animals of Australia might have behaved on the day the ancestors of the first Aborigines set foot on the continent.

16th May 1788—This forenoon I went shore with Captain Sever and Mr Watts in the pinnace; we went through an opening in the reef over which the sea broke with a tremendous noise and swell. We landed in Hunter's Bay and saw great numbers of boobies, pigeons and many other birds. The captain and Mr Watts returned to dinner but as Mr Anstis was coming on shore after dinner I continued there hunting birds etc. in the woods. Mr Anstis and the steward with several of the ship's company came in the afternoon and stayed on shore all night. The sport we had in knocking down birds etc. was great indeed, though at the expense of tearing most of the clothes off our backs. We made a fire under the trees and supped upon part of our game broiled, which was very sweet and good—the pigeons were the largest I ever saw. We afterwards slept in thick greatcoats carried on shore for that purpose, covered over with the leaves of the cabbage tree, which are here innumerable and many of them so small and tender that you may cut them down with a pocket knife.

When I was in the woods amongst the birds I could not help picturing to myself the Golden Age as described by Ovid to see the fowls or coots, some white, some blue and white, others all blue with large red bills and a patch of red on the top of their heads, and the boobies in thousands, together with a curious brown bird about the size of the landrail in England, walking totally fearless and unconcerned in all part around us, so that we had nothing more to do than to stand still a minute or two and knock down as many as we pleased with a short stick—if you throwed at them and missed them, or even hit them without killing them, they never made the least attempt to fly away and indeed they would only run a few yards from you and be as quiet and unconcerned as if nothing had happened.

The pigeons also were tame as those already described and would sit upon the branches of the trees till you might go and take them off with your hand, or if the branch was so high on which they sat, they would at all times sit till you might knock them down with a short stick—many hundreds of all the sorts mentioned above, together with many parrots and parakeets, magpies and other birds were caught and carried on board our ship and the
Charlotte
,

There has never been any quadruped or reptile seen on the island, which is five or six miles in length and one mile broad at the broadest part and in some parts not so much. The trees on it are chiefly mangroves, cabbage trees, bamboo canes, a species of large aloes plants.

After describing the number and tameness of the feathered inhabitants of this island, I must take notice that our surprise was no less in the morning upon going into the pinnace to fish with hooks and lines in the bay within side the reef. The water in many parts not more than four or five feet deep with a fine white sandy bottom with coral, brainstones and many other marine plants growing at the bottom, with the sun shining bright upon them, and the innumerable quantities and varieties of fish swimming amongst this coral grove (if I may be allowed the expression) exhibited such a novel and beautiful a scene as but few places in the world I believe will afford. The fish bit so very fast that in about two or three hours we had caught some hundredweight—and the pinnace was half loaded…The fish we caught in the space of three hours served the whole ship's company three days.

W
ATKIN
T
ENCH

Gonin-Patta!, 1791

In 1791 almost everything west of Rose Hill (Parramatta) was terra incognita. The First Fleeters mounted several expeditions to fill in the blanks on the map. Here we accompany Captain Watkin Tench, his friend Lieutenant Dawes, Governor Phillip and others into the wilds lying north and west of Sydney Cove, a region which today is rapidly disappearing under the city's vast sprawl. They wanted to discover if the Nepean and Hawkesbury rivers formed one stream.

Tench was a great wit, always ready to enjoy a joke at his own expense. His account of the expedition quickly turns into a comedy. He describes how the Aboriginal ‘guides' Colbee and Boladeree would relive every fall and mishap the Europeans have experienced. Tench's
ultima Thule
is ‘that pile of desolation' the governor was pleased to name Tench's Prospect Mount.

Tench's explorations revealed little in the way of new territory, but they have left us some extraordinary insights into the language and life of the Aborigines of the Sydney area. They also remind us of the good relations which existed between black and white at the very beginning of European settlement.

Monday, April 11th, 1791. At twenty minutes before seven o'clock we started from the governor's house at Rose Hill and steered for a short time nearly in a north-east direction, after which we turned to north 34° west, and steadily pursued that course until a quarter before four o'clock, when we halted for the night.
^*
The country for the first two miles, while we walked to the north-east, was good, full of grass and without rock or underwood. Afterwards it grew very bad, being full of steep, barren rocks, over which we were compelled to clamber for seven miles, when it changed to a plain country apparently very sterile, and with very little grass in it, which rendered walking easy. Our fatigue in the morning had, however, been so oppressive that one of the party knocked up. And had not a soldier, as strong as a pack-horse, undertaken to carry his knapsack in addition to his own, we must either have sent him back, or have stopped at a place for the night which did not afford water.

Our two natives carried each his pack, but its weight was inconsiderable, most of their provisions being in the knapsacks of the soldiers and gamekeepers. We expected to have derived from them much information relating to the country, as no one doubted that they were acquainted with every part of it between the sea coast and the river Hawkesbury. We hoped also to have witnessed their manner of living in the woods, and the resources they rely upon in their journeys. Nothing, however, of this sort had yet occurred, except their examining some trees to see if they could discover on the bark any marks of the claws of squirrels and opossums, which they said would show whether any of those animals were hidden among the leaves and branches.
^†
They walked stoutly, appeared but little fatigued, and maintained their spirits admirably, laughing to excess when any of us either tripped or stumbled, misfortunes which much seldomer fell to their lot than to ours.

At a very short distance from Rose Hill, we found that they were in a country unknown to them, so that the farther they went the more dependent on us they became, being absolute strangers inland. To convey to their understandings the intention of our journey was impossible. For, perhaps, no words could unfold to an Indian the motives of curiosity which induce men to encounter labour, fatigue and pain, when they might remain in repose at home, with a sufficiency of food. We asked Colbee the name of the people who live inland, and he called them Boòrooberongal; and said they were bad, whence we conjectured that they sometimes war with those on the sea coast, by whom they were undoubtedly driven up the country from the fishing ground, that it might not be overstocked; the weaker here, as in every other country, giving way to the stronger.

We asked how they lived. He said, on birds and animals, having no fish. Their laziness appeared strongly when we halted, for they refused to draw water or to cleave wood to make a fire; but as soon as it was kindled (having first well stuffed themselves), they lay down before it and fell asleep. About an hour after sunset, as we were chatting by the fireside and preparing to go to rest, we heard voices at a little distance in the wood. Our natives catched the sound instantaneously and, bidding us be silent, listened attentively to the quarter whence it had proceeded. In a few minutes we heard the voices plainly; and, wishing exceedingly to open a communication with this tribe, we begged our natives to call to them, and bid them to come to us, to assure them of good treatment, and that they should have something given them to eat.

Colbee no longer hesitated, but gave them the signal of invitation, in a loud hollow cry. After some whooping and shouting on both sides, a man with a lighted stick in his hand advanced near enough to converse with us. The first words which we could distinctly understand were, ‘I am Colbee, of the tribe of Càdigal.' The stranger replied, ‘I am Bèreewan, of the tribe of Boòrooberongal.' Boladeree informed him also of his name and that we were white men and friends, who would give him something to eat. Still he seemed irresolute. Colbee therefore advanced to him, took him by the hand and led him to us. By the light of the moon, we were introduced to this gentleman, all our names being repeated in form by our two masters of the ceremonies, who said that we were Englishmen and
budyeree
(good), that we came from the sea coast, and that we were travelling inland.

Bèreewan seemed to be a man about thirty years old, differing in no respect from his countrymen with whom we were acquainted. He came to us unarmed, having left his spears at a little distance. After a long conversation with his countrymen, and having received some provisions, he departed highly satisfied.

Tuesday, April 12th, 1791. Started this morning at half past six o'clock, and in two hours reached the river. The whole of the country we passed was poor, and the soil within a mile of the river changed to a coarse deep sand, which I have invariably found to compose its banks in every part without exception that I ever saw. The stream at this place is about 350 feet wide; the water pure and excellent to the taste. The banks are about twenty feet high and covered with trees, many of which had been evidently bent by the force of the current in the direction which it runs, and some of them contained rubbish and driftwood in their branches at least forty-five feet above the level of the stream. We saw many ducks, and killed one, which Colbee swam for. No new production among the shrubs growing here was found. We were acquainted with them all.