DANCINGA DANCING GROUND AND DRUMS AT PORT SANDWICH, MALEKALA (MALLICOLO) ISLAND, NEW HEBRIDES.
A DANCING GROUND AND DRUMS AT PORT SANDWICH, MALEKALA (MALLICOLO) ISLAND, NEW HEBRIDES.
A DANCING GROUND AND DRUMS AT PORT SANDWICH, MALEKALA (MALLICOLO) ISLAND, NEW HEBRIDES.
Soon after leaving the last islet of the Tonga archipelago a terrible storm burst on them, and the sea curling over the stern of the boat the fatigue of baling became very great, and some of the provisions were spoilt. They would probably have succumbed to their miseries but for the rum, which was served out to them in teaspoonfuls. When the weather improved they suffered from want of room, their limbs being fearfully cramped, for scarcely any man could stretch out to his full length, and the nights were cold, especially to men soaked with seawater. They passed near the Fiji Islands, from which they were chased by cannibals in canoes. They were soused with heavy rain, and, though it increased their stock of fresh water, this added to their miseries.
In order to serve out allowances methodically Bligh made a pair of scales with two coconut shells, using pistol balls as weights. He also interested the crew byhis description of what was known of both New Guinea and Australia, giving all the information stored in his mind, so that in the case of his death the survivors might still reach Timor. Their rations sometimes consisted of a quarter of a pint of coconut milk, a little decayed bread, and the kernels of four coconuts. Occasionally half an ounce of salt pork was given to each man. The storms and the rain continued, and Bligh proposed to the men that when wet through with rainwater they should wring their clothes out in salt water before putting them on again, a proceeding from which, he says, they derived much warmth and refreshment, though every man complained of violent pains in his bones. Incessant baling had to be carried on, both because of the deluge of rain and the waves breaking into the boat. They were sometimes so covered with rain and saltwater that they could scarcely see, and suffered extreme cold. Sleep fled from them in their misery.
One day about noon some noddies (terns, a kind of gull) came so near the boat that one was caught by the hand. It was about the size of a small pigeon. Bligh divided it with its entrails into eighteen portions, which were impartially distributed amongst the crew, Bligh himself, in drawing lots, having nothing but the beak and claws. Later they caught a gannet, which was also divided into eighteen portions, though its blood was given to the three people who were most distressed for want of food. After that they caught more and more gannets, and found their crops containing flying-fish and small cuttlefish, all of which were welcome additions to their diet.
On 28 May they heard the sound of breakers on the Barrier Reef which surrounds north-eastern Australia.With intense thankfulness they found a break in the reef a quarter of a mile in width. Through this the boat sailed to the westward and came immediately into smooth water, so that all the past hardships seemed at once to be forgotten, and on this account a short religious service was held on board. Soon afterwards they landed on the sandy point of an island off the Australian coast, and to their intense delight discovered oysters on the rocks. By the help of a small magnifying glass a fire was made. One of the men had managed to bring away with him a copper pot, and into this put a mixture of oysters, bread, and pork, from which a stew was made sufficient to give each person a full pint of nourishing food. Moreover, they obtained berries or fruits on this island, which out of gratitude Bligh named Restoration Island. Calling soon afterwards at another island they discovered one of the species of "cabbage" palms already referred to in this book, and from the palm cabbages and oysters they made excellent meals, which restored almost everyone to health.
On one of these islands they saw, just as they were embarking after filling the boat with oysters, twenty naked savages running and hallooing and beckoning the strangers to come to them; but as each one was armed with either a spear or a lance it was thought better to hold no communication with them. At one of these islands off the north coast of Australia, to which was given the name of "Sunday", a mutinous feeling began again, which Bligh allayed by inviting the mutineer to fight a duel with him. In spite of this unpleasant occurrence on Sunday Island they obtained oysters, clams, dogfish, and wild beans. A party was sent out by night to catch birds, and returned with only twelve of the noddyterns. The reason they did not get more was that one of the men rushed amongst the birds precipitately and disturbed them in order to secure for himself as large a number as possible. In his frightful hunger he acknowledged that he had eatennineof these little gulls! Nevertheless, after again putting out into the open sea on their course to Timor, hunger again attacked them, and there was a terrible decline in health. On 10 June Bligh noticed a visible alteration for the worse, his people showing extreme weakness, with swelled legs, hollow and ghastly countenances, a constant inclination to slumber, and a weakness of understanding. He administered wine, and cheered them up by saying that from his calculations he believed they were now close to Timor.
He proved to be correct, for on 12 June the coast of Timor was discovered at a distance of only 6 miles, and two days afterwards they came to an anchor at the Dutch settlement in Kupang Bay, where they were received with every mark of kindness, hospitality, and humanity. They stayed at Kupang for two months to recruit their strength, and then obtaining a small schooner they sailed to Batavia, from which island they were sent home in the ships of the Dutch East India Company. Bligh himself was landed at the Isle of Wight on 11 March, 1790. Nelson the botanist, however, died at Kupang, and five of the other officers and men succumbed to disease at Java or on the way home, so that besides the man who was killed on the Island of Tofoa, six only out of the nineteen men set adrift by the mutineers failed to reach a home which was some 14,000 miles distant from the place at which they had been cast adrift.
After setting Bligh and his companions adrift, Christian took command of theBounty, and her course was directed,not to Tahiti, but to the Tubuai archipelago farther south. The mutineers threw overboard the greater part of the bread-fruit plants, but, quarrelling with the natives of Tubuai, they sailed to Tahiti. Here Otu, the principal chief, became very inquisitive about the fate of Captain Bligh and the bread-fruit plants. They told him a garbled story about meeting Captain Cook and handing the plants over to him, and that Mr. Christian had now returned to Tahiti to obtain an additional supply of pigs, goats, fowls, and more bread-fruit. So overjoyed were the Tahitians to hear that their dear friend Captain Cook was not dead, but alive (which of course was a lie) and about to settle on an island so near to them, that in the course of a very few days theBountyreceived on board 312 pigs, 38 goats (derived of course from the animals landed by Cook originally), 96 fowls, a bull and a cow, and a large quantity of bread-fruit and bananas. TheBountyalso received on board eight men, nine women, and seven boys. They then returned to Tubuai, where they ran the ship on shore, landed the live stock, and set about building a fort. But they soon quarrelled with the natives, of whom they shot many with their firearms. Their position became untenable; so once more they returned to Tahiti, in September, 1789. Here sixteen of the mutineers were landed at their own request, while the remaining nine decided to continue their voyage in theBounty, which once more sailed away with seven Tahiti men and twelve women, intending to discover some unknown or uninhabited island in which there was no harbour for shipping.
British ships of war sent out after the return of Bligh to search for the mutineers brought away fourteen out of the sixteen who had been landed at Tahiti. All these were put on their trial: three were executed and the remaindereither pardoned or only received short terms of imprisonment. But they were conveyed to England under circumstances of great brutality, and, curiously enough, on their way back, thePandora(the ship of war which conveyed them under the command of Captain Edwardes) struck on the Barrier Reef off north-east Australia, and the mutineers, like everyone else, had in one of the ship's boats to perform a voyage to Timor almost equally remarkable with that of Captain Bligh. Once more the Dutch officials at Kupang (who must have got rather tired by this time of shipwrecked mutinous British seafarers) received them with the greatest kindness and sent them towards England in a vessel of the Dutch East India Company.[107]
Meantime the people in England were still in ignorance of what fate had attended the last of the mutineers. This was not revealed until 1809. An American ship, theTopaz, of Boston, by a mere chance approached the shores of desolate little Pitcairn Island, and on landing there to obtain water they discovered, to their astonishment, an old Englishman calling himself Alexander Smith, and the only survivor of the nine mutineers who left Tahiti in 1789 in search of a distant and desert island, accompaniedby twelve Tahitian women, six men, and a number of boys. Smith stated to the captain of theTopazthat theBountywas run on shore at Pitcairn and broken up in 1790, but about four years afterwards a good deal of jealousy and ill humour arising between the Tahitians and the English seamen, the former suddenly revolted and killed every Englishman, except Alexander Smith, who was severely wounded. [Alexander Smith had for some reason, then or earlier, changed his name to that of John Adams, by which he is better known in history.] The same night the Tahitian widows of the slain Englishmen rose up and put to death the whole of the Tahitian men, leaving Smith the only adult man alive on the island, together with eight or nine women, and several children who were the offspring of the English mutineers and the Tahitian women. These survivors now applied themselves sedulously to tilling the ground, so that in course of time it produced plenty of yams, coconuts and bananas, while they bred hogs and poultry in abundance. The population at the time of theTopaz'svisit amounted to thirty-five, who all acknowledged Smith as their chief and "father". They all spoke English, and Smith had done his best to educate them in a religious and a moral way. He died in March, 1829.
The little colony had been joined before that time by a seaman from a whaling ship, named John Buffet, who deliberately settled there and constituted himself chaplain and schoolmaster. He certainly contributed a good deal in course of time to the education and good morals of this colony of handsome half-breeds, a colony which was from time to time visited by British war vessels.
As to Christian, it was at first said that he had committed suicide soon after arriving at Pitcairn Island, butthe true story was that he was killed by one of the Tahitians. But he left behind him a son who grew up to be a handsome young fellow, and greatly astonished the naval officers whose ship visited Pitcairn in 1814 by coming off in Tahitian undress and saying in excellent English: "Won't you heave us a rope, now?" He then sprang with alacrity up the side of the ship and said, in reply to the question "Who are you?": "My name is Thursday October Christian." He was fully 6 feet high, with almost black hair, a handsome face, and wearing no clothes except a straw hat and a piece of cloth round his waist. His manner of speaking English was exceedingly correct both in grammar and pronunciation, and he was accompanied by a fine handsome youth of seventeen or eighteen, who called himself George Young, who was the son of one of the midshipmen of theBounty.
Pitcairn was named after a midshipman in the ship of Captain Philip Carteret, who first sighted the island in 1767. It rises to 2000 feet in height, and its area is only 2 square miles. It is 100 miles from the nearest island of the Paumotu group. It possesses the remains of carved stone pillars similar to those of Easter Island, together with stone axes, showing that at a remote period it was inhabited. When first discovered its surface was clothed with rich forest, the soil was very fertile, but the coast was rock-bound and dangerous of approach.
There were no springs or streams in Pitcairn Island, and when the forest began to be cut down by the settlers the rainfall decreased and there was a scarcity of water. An attempt was made by the mutineers' descendants to return to Tahiti in 1830, but it was given up, and the Pitcairn Islanders continued to inhabit the little island until 1856, when the whole of them—by this time 194in number—were landed on Norfolk Island, between New Zealand and New Caledonia. There most of their descendants live to this day. But in 1858 two families of these handsome hybrid people returned to Pitcairn, which now has a population of 170, who no longer speak English but an extraordinary mixture of Polynesian and English. They have also a good deal degenerated from the high standard of morality which was maintained in earlier days.
BLIGHCAPTAIN BLIGH AND HIS MEN SEARCHING FOR OYSTERS OFF THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
CAPTAIN BLIGH AND HIS MEN SEARCHING FOR OYSTERS OFF THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
CAPTAIN BLIGH AND HIS MEN SEARCHING FOR OYSTERS OFF THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
As to Bligh, he was sent back to Tahiti in command of theProvidencein 1791, and promptly obtained another supply of bread-fruit plants which he conveyed safely to Jamaica, thus introducing the bread-fruit tree into the West Indies. After distinguishing himself markedly in the British naval service he was appointed Governor of New South Wales in 1805, but became so intensely disliked there by the violence of his temper and his arbitrary acts that another mutiny arose against him headed by the principal military officer. Bligh was kept in prison by the mutineers for two years, but returned to England in 1811, where he was promoted to be an admiral. He died in London in 1817.
About the time that Bligh was dispatched in theBountyto obtain bread-fruit plants great developments were instituted in regard to Australia as the result of Cook's earlier voyages. The revolt of the American colonies and other circumstances had deprived the British Government of a region across the seas, to which convicted criminals might be sent as a cheap and easy way of getting rid of them. It was accordingly suggested to the British Government by various persons, including Sir Joseph Banks, that New South Wales (as Cook had called the eastern part of Australia) would be an excellent region in which to found a penal settlement, as well as to take steps for the ultimate founding of a free colony, a region to which British emigrants might go.
Australia and Tasmania need no longer take it to heart that their foundation as nations dates from such a cause as the transportation of convicts, since from a remote period in the history of civilized peoples this is how many and many a new colony has been founded. More especially was it so in the case of British America and the oldest of the British West India Islands. These settlements were chiefly valued for nearly 200 years by the British Government because they were places to which persons convicted of felony or of political crimes couldbe transported. Moreover, the free emigrants of good character who colonized Australia and Tasmania from the first considerably outnumbered the convicts who were sent to Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria, and West Australia. Amongst these again the criminal convicts for the most part died out without leaving issue. It was the political prisoners among the transported persons who chiefly prospered and founded families. In short, the colonization of Australia resembled in its processes the colonization of the United States. The person appointed to superintend the first settlement of Australia was CaptainArthur Phillip, the son of a German teacher of languages in London, who had entered the British Navy and served with great distinction. He commanded the first expedition to New South Wales, and left England in 1787 with a fleet of two men-of-war and six transports, conveying 550 men and 200 women convicts, and three store ships. There were also some free emigrants; in all about 1100 persons. The ships sailed round the Cape of Good Hope and reached Botany Bay on 18 January, 1788. Less than a month afterwards Phillip had already chosen and named the wonderful harbour of Sydney as the capital of the future colony, and almost on that very day there arrived at Botany Bay two French ships under the command of the Comte de la Pérouse, who had been sent out from France on a scientific expedition similar to those of Captain Cook. It is possible that but for the punctual arrival of Governor Phillip the French flag would have been hoisted over Australia. Though, as it would certainly have been pulled down again a few years later by the British conquest of the seas, the possibility is not one to give rise to sensational writing. But Governor Phillip was a man of energy. He not only asserted theBritish claim to all the coasts of eastern and southern Australia, but sent a party to take possession of Norfolk Island and its splendid sources of timber supply, and here a number of convicts were set on shore.[108]
The interest of the French Government in the lands of the Pacific Ocean did not cease with the remarkable voyage of Bougainville. In 1785Jean-François Galaup, Count of the Perouse(a native of Albi in the south-west of France, who had done gallant service for his country in Canada), took command of an expedition of two vessels,La BoussoleandL'Astrolabe, which was to explore more especially the northern parts of the Pacific. Although France had recently been expelled from Canada by the success of the British arms, and had transferred Louisiana to Spain, she still hoped in some way to regain her position in North America; and in spite of Cook's inability to find a navigable strait of water across the vast breadth of the North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the opinion still persisted in France that such a sea route across the continent did exist.[109]De la Pérouse was also directed to explore the coasts of north-eastern Asia, China, Japan, New Guinea, and Australia. His explorations of north-east Asia were very remarkable, but do not come within the scope of this narrative. He reached the Samoa archipelago in the winter of 1787. Here the officers and crew of theAstrolabequarrelled with the natives, and as a result eleven of the Frenchmen were killed. From Samoa the French expedition passed by way of Tonga and Norfolk Island to the coast of NewSouth Wales, and, as already related, arrived at Botany Bay only a few days after the British expedition under Governor Phillip. After a brief stay in Botany Bay the Comte de la Pérouse sailed away northwards, and his expedition was heard of no more, nor was his actual fate ever completely made known. Apparently the two ships were wrecked on the coral reefs of Vanikoro, a small island in the Santa Cruz group to the north of the New Hebrides. The natives of the Santa Cruz Islands showed themselves very hostile to strangers and white men in earlier times. It was here that Bishop Patterson was murdered in 1871, and it is possible that after the two French ships were driven on to the coral rocks by some storm their crews perished at the hands of the savages.
In 1791 another expedition, under the command ofBruni D'Entrecasteaux, Governor of Mauritius, was dispatched from Mauritius with two ships,La RechercheandL'Espérance, to search for de la Pérouse. D'Entrecasteaux obtained no information about the fate of his predecessor's ships, but his voyage added considerably to our knowledge of Australasia. He did much to complete Cook's very imperfect outline of the coast of New Caledonia, he surveyed a good deal of the Tasmanian coast (though he failed to find out that this was after all an island), and he explored the south coast of Australia, which, except for the preceding voyage of Vancouver, had remained almost entirely unknown since the hasty exploration of Pieter Nuyts in 1628.
George Vancouver(whose great work as a British pioneer is associated more with the north-west coast of America) had in 1791 mapped a good deal of the south-west Australian coast and had pointed out the value as a harbour of King George's Sound. He also added toour knowledge of New Zealand, and then continued his route across the Pacific towards what is now the coast of British Columbia.
The troubles which ensued in France, owing to the Revolution and the uprise of Napoleon, diverted the attention of the French from oversea discovery for something like eight years. The British took advantage of this lull to increase their knowledge of the Australian coast and their claims to this region, which even in 1788 were defined as extending from Cape York on Torres Straits, round the east coast of Australia to the southernmost point of Tasmania, and to comprise all the adjacent islands of the Pacific Ocean. A remarkable discovery of an outcrop of coal on the Australian coast near Tasmania by shipwrecked sailors attracted the attention ofGeorge Bass, the surgeon of a small Government vessel. This bold man, embarking in a mere whaleboat, passed along the Australian coast until he found the outcrop of coal. In the following year, 1798, his explorations of these regions convinced him that Tasmania was an island. Bass was accompanied on his circumnavigation of Tasmania by LieutenantMatthew Flinders. This first circumnavigation of Tasmania, which lasted for five months, was undertaken in a little vessel which had been constructed in Australia from the timber of the Norfolk Island pine, and was only of 25 tons burden. In this same vessel the gallant Flinders[110]—one of the most remarkable amongst Australian pioneers—in 1799 explored the coast of what we now know as Queensland, which was then called the Moreton Bay district. In 1802 Flinders had become the commander of H.M.S.Investigator, a ship of 334 tons. He christened the continent for the first time definitelywith the name ofAustralia; and having already added to Cook's exploration of the Queensland coast, he now turned his attention to that of South Australia, which at the commencement of the nineteenth century was most imperfectly known, being only vaguely delineated from the surmised outline put down in the early part of the seventeenth century by the Dutch explorers, together with a little work achieved by Captain Vancouver and the Frenchman D'Entrecasteaux. Amongst other points Flinders discovered Kangaru Island off the coast of South Australia.[111]The French seem to have had some conception of the indentation of the South Australian coast known as Spencer's Gulf, and from this hint arose the theory put forward at the end of the eighteenth century that New South Wales was one vast island and New Holland another, separated by a strait of water uniting Spencer Gulf on the south with the Gulf of Carpentaria on the north. Flinders's exploration of Spencer's Gulf definitely proved the continuity of the whole Australian area.
With Flinders on board theInvestigatorwas a young midshipman (his cousin) of the name ofJohn Franklin, long afterwards to become a governor of Tasmania and to achieve deathless fame as one of the great Arctic pioneers.
In 1800 there was dispatched from France another scientific expedition for the exploration of Australia. This was under the command of CaptainNicolas Baudin, and consisted of two ships,Le GéographieandLe Naturaliste, and contained twenty-three geographers, zoologists, and draughtsmen; but owing to bad arrangements in regard to her supplies of food the crews of the two ships suffered to ahorrible extent from scurvy before they reached Australia, and indeed might have perished but for the assistance they received from the British settlement at Port Jackson (Sydney). This French expedition also explored the southern coast of Australia, but, with the exception of about 160 miles of coast which it was the first to examine, added little to geographical knowledge as regards priority of discovery, though for a long time Captain Louis de Freycinet, the mapmaker who accompanied Baudin, posed as having been the first to map much of the Tasmanian and South Australian coasts. It is evident that his commander, Baudin, or Freycinet himself, had borrowed and copied the charts made by Flinders, and had amused themselves by giving the names of French personages to many a bay, promontory, and island already discovered and named by the British.
In the autumn of 1802 Flinders, having completed his survey of the whole south coast of Australia from Cape Leuwin to Sydney, started once more in theInvestigatorto complete his circumnavigation of the island continent. He made a careful exploration of the Great Barrier Reef, and then proceeded to explore the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria. After a brief rest at the Island of Timor theInvestigatorsailed round the west and south coasts of Australia and once more reached Port Jackson in 1803. Flinders had thus been the first commander to circumnavigate Australia and to prove that it was an undivided area, and that there were no more surprises or mysteries in its outline.
WHALINGWhaling in the South Seas
Whaling in the South Seas
Whaling in the South Seas
Flinders left Port Jackson again in August, 1803, to proceed to England in H.M.S.Porpoise, which was accompanied by a merchant vessel, theCato. But both these vessels struck a coral reef about 800 milesnorth from Port Jackson and were completely wrecked. The crews managed to land in safety on a small sand-bank only 4 feet at most above high-water mark, and here they were obliged to camp under a blazing sun with all that they could save in the way of provisions and important papers. Flinders, getting into a six-oared boat with a few seamen, actually rowed and sailed 800 miles across the sea back to Port Jackson, obtained a small vessel there, returned to the reef, and brought off safely all the officers and men who had been left there. In this same vessel, theCumberland, a schooner of only 29 tons, he started for England with ten seamen and a collection of papers, charts, and geological specimens. In this little unseaworthy vessel he actually sailed across the stormy Indian Ocean and reached Mauritius, where he put in for rest and refreshment.
Mauritius at that time—December, 1803—was still in the possession of the French. Although Flinders had been granted a French passport when he left England in theInvestigator, the Governor of Mauritius refused to recognize this as he was no longer in that ship. This Governor-General Decaen—on the contrary, put Flinders in prison, charging him with being a spy, and seized all his papers and charts. But although these last were kept from him until the close of 1807, and one of his logbooks was never returned to him, it is now shown that they were not made use of in compiling the atlas for the report of Baudin's expedition. What the French had borrowed from him was due to his friendly communications when the two expeditions met on the south-east coast of Australia.
Nevertheless, Flinders was detained more or less as a prisoner in Mauritius, eating his heart out, for nearlyseven years. He reached England in October, 1810, after Mauritius had been surrendered to a British fleet. His treatment by the Government of his country on his return to England staggers one with its heartless ingratitude. The first circumnavigator of Australia—who had encountered perils which only a heroic spirit could have overcome, who had nevertheless taken the utmost care of the health of those serving under him, and had consequently had little loss of life to report, who had really by his presence on the Australian coasts at many points on different occasions assured to his mother country undisputed possession of that continent by forestalling the expeditions of France, who had traversed the Indian Ocean from Torres Straits to Mauritius in a little boat of 29 tons—was given no reward or honour, and was told that his long imprisonment in that island had barred him from all promotion. He settled down to work for the Admiralty at Portsmouth, and he devoted himself with unceasing industry to the compilation of a book describing his explorations and reproducing his original charts of the Australian coastline. On the very day on which this book was published—in July, 1814—Flinders died, only forty years old. His constitution had been greatly impaired, not so much by the incidents of his circumnavigation of the Australian coast as by the long and unhealthy imprisonment in Mauritius; and his health was undoubtedly further affected by the utter lack of recognition which his great journey met with on the part of the British Government.
Soon after the fall of Napoleon, in 1815, the French Government again sent out exploring expeditions to the Pacific, and each one caused fresh British settlements on the Australian coasts and on those of New Zealand. This last region had been visited at the close of the eighteenthcentury not only by Captain Vancouver but by Spanish and even Russian ships, while the infant marine of the United States, chiefly interested in whaling enterprise, were attracted to New Zealand on account of the abundance of seals and whales on its coasts or in the adjacent waters of the Pacific. They found in New Zealand (which in spite of occasional episodes of savage anger against the white man, and cannibalism, was becoming more and more used to trade and the settlement of the white man) a useful base for their operations, and their attention was directed not merely to the obtaining of oil from whales and seals, but to the value of the New Zealand flax and timber.
It was, however, the foundation of the British colony of New South Wales which most powerfully influenced the fate of New Zealand. Communication rapidly sprang up from the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards between Sydney and New Zealand. In 1814 there arrived a party of English missionaries, under the leadership of the Rev.Samuel Marsden, which settled in the North Island. In spite of frequent disappointments and rebuffs these missionaries actually succeeded in about twenty-five years in bringing the two islands into something like a condition of peace by composing the quarrels between native tribes, many of whom became converted to Christianity.Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who had already carried out several successful colonizing experiments in South Australia, desired to do the same in New Zealand, but was opposed by the missionaries and by the British Government. He eventually succeeded in his purpose, and may almost be called the creator of the New Zealand Dominion, though he would have failed had it not been for the co-operation of that great Governor, Sir George Grey. The British Government hesitated to annex New Zealand, until forcedto do so by learning that a French colonial expedition was on its way to take possession of these islands for France. New Zealand was therefore added to the British empire on 11 August, 1840. The French settlers arrived at Akaroa, in the South Island; but, in spite of the British flag having been hoisted only two days before, fifty-seven of them decided to remain, and their descendants at Akaroa now number six hundred.
Between 1835 and 1853 the French obtained some small satisfaction for their eighteenth-century explorations by establishing a protectorate over the Tahiti archipelago and annexing the large island of New Caledonia, to which possessions they subsequently added the Marquezas, the Paumotu, and Tubuai archipelagos, and the Loyalty Islands near New Caledonia. It was really French scientific expeditions which definitely discovered the Fiji archipelago, so curiously overlooked by the great British explorers. But when a French expedition, underDumont d'Urville, examined these islands in 1827 it found them already under British influence; for from time to time convicts had escaped from the Australian penal settlement and had sought refuge in Fiji, where they had become in some cases the advisers of the native chiefs. A better influence, however, came among them in 1835, in the shape of the Wesleyan missionaries, who migrated to the Fiji archipelago from the Tonga or Friendly Islands, where they had met with complete success.
AUSTRALIAMap of Australia and New Zealand
Map of Australia and New Zealand
Map of Australia and New Zealand
In 1813, three explorers—Blaxland, Wentworth, andLawson—had succeeded in pushing their way through the difficult country of the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, which although not excessively lofty had nevertheless daunted even Bass, the companion ofFlinders, and discoverer of Bass's Straits. As the result of the crossing of the Blue Mountains a road was made through this mountainous region, and the pastoral interior of the eastern half of Australia was forthwith opened up. A maritime surveyor, LieutenantJohn Oxley, R.N., in 1823, once more continued the exploration of Queensland. A colony—Victoria—had grown up round the great harbour of Port Phillip from 1803 onwards. Tasmania had been explored from 1803 onwards, LieutenantBowerbeing the pioneer, and had been selected as a penal settlement in 1805. Hither had been removed the convicts first stationed on Norfolk Island. In 1829 the first settlement in West Australia was founded on the Swan River, where Perth, the capital of that State, now stands.
In 1828-30 CaptainCharles Sturtmade a remarkable overland journey from New South Wales to what is now known as South Australia, during which he discovered the Murrumbidgee, Darling, and Murray Rivers, the most important streams in Australia (Sturt also, in 1845, travelled from the banks of the Darling to the very centre of the stony, desert heart of Australia). One of the results of Sturt's first journeys was the foundation of the colony of South Australia, which began in 1836. In 1840Edward John Eyre(long afterwards to be Governor of Jamaica under unhappy circumstances, yet to survive triumphs and troubles alike, and to die in England in 1901) travelled overland the whole way from Spencer Gulf in South Australia to King George's Sound in West Australia, and discovered the salt Lake Torrens, and caught a glimpse of the larger Lake Eyre—believing, indeed, that he had had a vision of a mighty inland sea, instead of four separate, shallow, brackish lakes. In 1844-5 Dr.F.W.L. Leichardt, a German explorer,made a wonderful journey, 3000 miles in length, from near Brisbane, in Queensland, to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and then across Arnhem land to Port Essington, in the extreme north of the continent. In 1847 Leichardt attempted to cross Australia from east to west, but got lost in the bush in the interior of Queensland, and died, probably of thirst.
After these journeys, and the further explorations of the greatJohn M'Douall Stuart(Central Australia, and the crossing from south to north) in 1858-62;R. O'Hara BurkeandW.J. Wills(also Central Australia) in 1860-1—they were the first explorers to traverse Australia from south to north;A.H. Howitt, 1861;J. M'Kinlay(South and Central Australia), 1862;W.C. Gosse(West Australia), 1873; MajorP. Egerton Warburton(Central to West Australia), 1873; SirJohn Forrest(Central to West Australia) in 1873-4; andErnest Giles(West and South Australia) in 1875; the main features and characteristics of the Australian continent became known to the civilized world.
The first value attached to Australia was for its wheat-growing and cattle-rearing possibilities. Next followed, early in the nineteenth century, the introduction of merino sheep, and for forty years or so the main interests of Australia were pastoral, while the breeding of horses for the use of India ("Walers" they were called, as an abbreviation of New South Wales) became an important object of the settlers. The timber of Eucalyptus, Araucaria, and Casuarina was good enough to export; and the capacity of southern and south-eastern Australia as a vine-growing country soon became apparent. But in the middle of the nineteenth century the discovery on a large scale of gold threw all the other assets of this southern continentinto the shade. Australia proved, moreover, to be rich in silver, copper, tin, precious stones, and coal, besides gold; and happily the desert and stony regions, which were quite worthless for agricultural or pastoral purposes, turned out to be better endowed with minerals than the fertile land. In 1812 the total white population in all Australia scarcely exceeded 12,000; in 1912 it is not far off 4,500,000. A hundred years ago this continent of 2,947,000 square miles was a barely known and derelict land, the coasts of which were roughly indicated on the map, the interior being completely unknown. To-day it is the home of a young, white nation, which may some day rival in power and resources the United States of North America.
As regards New Guinea, no close attention was given to the geography of that great island until the surveying expedition of H.M.S.Fly, in 1842-6, commanded by CaptainF.P. Blackwood, R.N., and that of H.M.S.Rattlesnakeunder CaptainOwen Stanley, R.N., in 1846-50. This last-named expedition included in its staff as surgeon the great professor, Thomas Henry Huxley. Huxley named the high mountains of south-east New Guinea after his commander, who died before the expedition returned to England. South-east New Guinea (Papua), the portion nearest to Australia, was annexed by Great Britain in 1884.
In the settlement which followed the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars Great Britain decided to restore to Holland the Island of Java, which she had occupied since 1811. She also gave up all other Dutch possessions in the Malay Archipelago, and compensated herself by the establishment of Singapore and the elimination of Dutch rule from the Malay Peninsula. Thenceforth—from1818—the kingdom of Holland extended its sway through the nineteenth century over all parts of Malaysia, except the Philippine Islands (which belonged to Spain down to 1898), the Portuguese portion of the Island of Timor, and the northern parts of the great island of Borneo. It is difficult to understand why the Dutch left North Borneo alone. That region had been, however, for centuries, more or less under the dominion of a once powerful Muhammadan prince, the Sultan of Brunei, and it may be that he was too strong (possessing, as he did, in the early part of the nineteenth century, a great fleet of pirate ships) for the Dutch to tackle. This potentate occasionally entered into relations with the East India Company, but was not infrequently called to account for the piracies committed by his subjects or his allies the "sea-gipsies" (see p. 55) in the narrow seas between Borneo and Indo-China.
The possibilities of North Borneo attracted the attention in 1830-2 of a notable pioneer of the British Empire, James Brooke, who had been an officer in the service of the East India Company, but was taking a journey to China on account of his health. Learning that the Sultan of Brunei wished for assistance to enable him to put down piracy and overcome rebellious chiefs, Brooke, having inherited his father's fortune, fitted out an expedition at his own expense in England and left the mouth of the Thames in 1838 for North Borneo in a ship of his own, a sailing yacht of only 140 tons. It would somewhat daunt the modern adventurer to embark on a little sailing vessel of that size and voyage round the Cape of Good Hope and across the stormy southern half of the Indian Ocean to the Sea of China. Brooke found on his arrival at Brunei that the uncle of the sultan was engaged in adifficult war with the Dayaks in the western part of northern Borneo (Sarawak). On condition that he subdued the rebels and pirates in the western part of his dominions the Sultan of Brunei agreed to confer on Brooke the chieftainship of this region; and this delegation of authority developed (not altogether, however, to the liking of the Sultan of Brunei) into the creation of the very remarkable State of Sarawak, which ever since 1841 has been a sovereign state in Malaysia, under the rule of an English raja. Indeed, although Sarawak was founded in 1841, it has only known, so far, two rulers, firstly, Sir James Brooke, and secondly, his nephew Sir Charles Johnson Brooke. Ever since 1888 Sarawak has been under British protection. The British Government had annexed the Island of Labuan, near Brunei, in 1846, as a basis from which they might attack the pirates who infested the Malaysian seas. In 1881 a charter was granted to a company of British merchants for the foundation of the State of North Borneo, originating in concessions made by the sultans of Brunei and Sulu. The historic Sultanate of Brunei itself was brought under British protection in 1888, and finally under British administration in 1906, so that the whole of the northern third of Borneo is now within the limits of the British Empire.
Germany first began to take an interest in Australasia about 1850, when German steamers or sailing vessels from Hamburg and Bremen found their way to the South Seas. Especially noteworthy was the house of Godeffroy, founded originally by French Huguenots. Although this firm eventually failed, it did much to lay the foundations of German commerce in the Pacific, and took an especial interest in the Samoa archipelago. As a result of itswork the German Government decided to acquire possessions in this direction where other European nations were not already established. The Marshall Islands were annexed in 1885; and the Caroline Islands, with the exception of the island of Guam (which was ceded by Spain to the United States), came under the German flag by purchase in 1899. The Dutch had laid claim to the western half of New Guinea during the middle of the nineteenth century, when all that region was being explored with great advantage to science byAlfred Russell Wallace; but at the same period it was almost taken for granted that the eastern half, and especially the parts of New Guinea nearest to Australia, would eventually become British.
The Government of Queensland, indeed, annexed all the eastern half of New Guinea in 1883; but their action was disavowed by the British Government. Shortly afterwards, however (in 1884), seeing that other European powers were considering the possibilities of New Guinea as a suitable region for annexation, the British flag was raised there, and eventually, by agreement with Germany, Great Britain added to her empire the south-eastern parts of New Guinea, together with nearly all the Solomon Islands and the Santa Cruz archipelago. Germany, in the same year (1884), had annexed north-eastern New Guinea (Kaiser Wilhelmsland) and the Bismarck Archipelago (New Britain, New Ireland, the Admiralty Islands, &c.). She also acquired Bougainville and Buka Islands in the Solomon archipelago. France attempted about the same time to claim the New Hebrides, but Australia objected, with the result that the New Hebrides are at present administered jointly by Britain and France. In 1899 Germany annexed the two principal islands of Samoa, the smallest of thethree falling to the United States, which, by its successful war with Spain, had acquired the Philippine archipelago and the island of Guam. Fiji had been ceded to the British Government in 1874 by its chiefs and people. In 1899-1904 the Tonga or Friendly Islands became a British protectorate; and at earlier and later dates many small Pacific islands and groups not important enough to need special mention were brought within the British Empire.
The people of Hawaii archipelago, where Cook lost his life, had been converted early in the nineteenth century to Christianity by missionaries, British and American. The islands were ruled in a more or less civilized fashion by a native dynasty of kings, but at the same time were increasingly settled by white men as planters and merchants. The white population became too difficult of government by these half-civilized Polynesians, a revolution was brought about, for a few years Hawaii was an independent republic administered by Americans, and finally was annexed by the United States in 1898. Consequently there remains at the present day no territory whatever in Australasia which is not under the flag of some European or American power. In Australia—which became a homogeneous state by the institution of federal government in 1900—we have the beginnings of a mighty nation; likewise in the Dominion of New Zealand, which now has a white population of over 1,000,000. New Guinea is still a land mainly inhabited by savages, and it is probable that owing to its unhealthiness it will remain more or less a domain of the black man, and the same may be the case with the Solomon Islands. But elsewhere, though the Polynesian and Melanesian peoples are far from being exterminated, they are diminishing in numbers from one cause and another,and those that survive will probably fuse in blood with the white colonists. Many of these Pacific islands are earthly paradises, so far as climate and fertility of soil are concerned. They will doubtless some day become densely inhabited, and their prosperity will justify the efforts, the sufferings, and even the crimes and mistakes of the Pioneers.
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