Referring to the fauna, the same authority says:—
"North Western Australia seems to be peculiarly prolific in birds, reptiles, and insects, who dwell here unmolested. . . ."
After mentioning several kinds of kangaroos, opossums, native dogs, etc., the former of which animals are constantly hunted down by the natives, Grey, speaking of the birds, says:—
"To describe the birds common to these parts requires more time than to detail the names of the few quadrupeds to be found. Indeed, in no other country that I have ever visited do birds so abound. Even the virgin forests of America cannot, in my belief, boast of such numerous feathered denizens. . . . The birds of this country possess, in many instances, an excessively beautiful plumage, and he alone who has traversed these wild and romantic regions, who has beheld a flock of many-coloured parrakeets sweeping like a moving rainbow through the air, can form any adequate idea of the scenes that then burst on the eye of the wondering naturalist. As to fish, the rivers abound in many species of excellent fish."
Could there be a more fitting description of that country which De Gonneville and his companions explored along the coast and in the interior to a distance of two days' journey, which "they found very fertile and full of many birds, beasts, and fish hitherto unknown in Christendom?" To what does this latter qualification apply? Certainly not to birds, beasts, or fish of either South America or Madagascar, as the American fauna was, to a certain extent, already known in Christendom, and that of Madagascar, which resembles that of the east coast of Africa, apart from a few species not particularly remarkable or numerous, was also well-known to Europeans. These beasts, of which, to use the old Norman phrase of "Master Nicole Le Fevre, avait pourtrayé les façons," must have struck him as very peculiar indeed when he refers to them as "utterly unknown in Christendom," and we know well that no other country can boast of a fauna so essentially different to that of any other part of the world as the Australian Continent.
And now as to the natives of this part of Australia, i.e., the neighbourhood of the Glenelg and Prince Regent's River. Grey, in page 251 of the above cited work, says:—
"My knowledge of the natives is chiefly drawn from what I have observed of their haunts, their painted caves, and drawings. I have, moreover, become acquainted with several of their weapons, some of their implements, and took pains to study their disposition and habits as far as I could.
"In their manner of life, their weapons, and mode of hunting, they closely resemble the other Australian tribes with which I have since become pretty intimately acquainted, WHILST IN THEIR FORM AND APPEARANCE THERE IS A STRIKING DIFFERENCE. They are, in general, very tall and robust, and exhibit in their legs and arms a fine, full development of muscle which is unknown to southern races. They wear no clothes, and their bodies are marked by scars and wales. They seem to have no regular mode of dressing their hair, this appearing to depend entirely on individual taste or caprice.
"THEY APPEAR TO LIVE IN TRIBES, SUBJECT, PERHAPS, TO SOME INDIVIDUALAUTHORITY, AND EACH TRIBE HAS A SORT OF CAPITAL OR HEAD-QUARTERS, WHERETHE WOMEN AND CHILDREN REMAIN, WHILST THE MEN, DIVIDED INTO SMALLPARTIES, HUNT AND SHOOT IN EVERY DIRECTION. The largest number we sawtogether, including women and children, amounted to nearly two hundred.
"Their arms consist of stone-headed spears, of throwing-sticks, of boomerangs or kileys, clubs, and stone hatchets.
"These natives manufacture their water buckets and weapons very neatly, and make from the bark of a tree a light but strong cord.
"THEIR LANGUAGE IS SOFT AND MELODIOUS, SO MUCH SO AS TO LEAD TO THE INFERENCE THAT IT DIFFERS VERY MATERIALLY, IF NOT RADICALLY, FROM THE MORE SOUTHERN AUSTRALIAN DIALECTS, WHICH I HAVE SINCE HAD AN OPPORTUNITY TO INQUIRE INTO. Their gesticulation is expressive, and their bearing manly and noble. They never speared a horse or sheep belonging to us, and, judging by the degree of industry shown in their paintings, the absence of anything offensive in the subjects delineated, and the careful finish of some articles of common use, I should infer that, under proper treatment, they might easily be raised very considerably in the scale of civilisation.
"A REMARKABLE CIRCUMSTANCE IS THE PRESENCE AMONGST THEM OF A RACE, TO APPEARANCE, TOTALLY DIFFERENT AND ALMOST WHITE, WHO SEEM TO EXERCISE NO SMALL INFLUENCE OVER THE REST. I am forced to believe that the distrust evinced towards strangers arose from these persons, as in both instances when we were attacked, the hostile party was led by one of these light-coloured men."
We need only draw the attention of the reader to the close resemblance between the description of De Gonneville's "Australians" and that of Grey's in many particulars, especially in their tribal organization, the form of their houses, [Note, below] their language, and the fact of the existence among them, as leaders of the tribes, of that race of almost white men also observed about the same parts by Captain King, who thinks that they are of Malay origin.
[Note: Callender, in his translation omits a passage referring to the form of the huts of the Australians, which De Gonneville says were "EN FORME DE HALLES," i.e., in the form of covered markets such as seen in the villages of Normandy, which are generally oval structures.]
There are certain discrepancies, however, which cannot be explained away, unless it is taken into consideration that Grey visited those coasts three hundred and thirty years after the French sailor, and that during that interval of time the customs of the inhabitants cannot fall to have undergone a change. It may be also that the light-coloured people seen amongst them are but the remnants of once numerous tribes, probably of Malay origin, as these latter have left undeniable marks of their having not intermixed with the native races throughout the whole of northern Australia. One of the points of dissemblance which might be pointed out is the fact that De Gonneville describes them as using bows and arrows, which is at variance with our knowledge of the arms of the Australians, and equally differs from Grey's description of the same; but this objection exists also as regards the inhabitants of Madagascar, who, besides, had already attained a much higher degree of civilisation than that described by De Gonneville—being acquainted with the use of iron, the manufacture of cotton and silk goods, fine mats, and many other articles of value among civilised people. The Madagascar natives never made use of the skins of animals as an article of dress, whilst this custom is common to the aborigines of all parts of Australia, where the kangaroo, opossums, native bears, and emus, furnish them with the material, with which they could manufacture these garments of skins or beds of feathers described by De Gonneville. But if the theory is accepted, which we are about to put forward regarding the inhabitants of this part of Australia—that at the time of De Gonneville's visit a people of Malay origin inhabited it in fairly large numbers, of which the light-coloured natives seen by Grey are the descendants, and that with their disappearance from that district some of their customs disappeared with them, the natives of the present day retaining only those best suited to their actual mode of life—then the Norman captain's narrative will become intelligible. Besides, as regards the use of bow and arrow, certainly known to the Malays, although the intercourse of the latter with other tribes on the north Australian coast has been undoubtedly frequent, nowhere have the Australian natives adopted that kind of arm, whilst in New Guinea and all over Northern Polynesia the bow and arrow is the inevitable war accoutrement of the savage, who certainly obtained the knowledge of it from his Malay forefathers. No wonder, then, that in the district explored by Grey, these arms should have given way to the equally effective boomerang, throwing-stick, and spears, and other weapons of the North Australian savage.
The theory we have just submitted with regard to the country round the Glenelg River and that of the Prince Regent having been at one time inhabited by a different and superior race is no idle one, and is proved by the discoveries of remarkable paintings made by the same Lieutenant Grey in the caves near the mouth of the abovenamed rivers.
Again we shall have to quote this excellent author, whose clear and concise descriptions are of such value, and refer the reader to the following passages in the diary of his explorations in that part of the Australian Continent:—
"On this sloping roof the principal figure (1) which I have just alluded to was drawn. In order to produce the greater effect, the rock about it was painted black, and the figure itself coloured with the most vivid red and white. It thus appeared to stand out from the rock, and I was certainly surprised at the moment that I first saw this gigantic head and upper part of a body bending over and staring grimly down on me.
"It would be impossible to convey in words an adequate idea of this uncouth and savage figure; I shall, therefore, only give such a succinct account of this and the other paintings as will serve as a sort of description to accompany the annexed plates.
"Length of head and face 2 ft. 0 in."Width of face 0 ft 17 in. (sic)"Length from bottom of face to navel 2 ft 6 in.
"Its head was encircled by bright red rays, something like the rays which one sees proceeding from the sun when depicted on the signboard of a public house. Inside of this came a broad stripe of very brilliant red, which was coped by lines of white; both inside and outside of this red space were narrow stripes of a still deeper red, intended probably to mark its boundaries. The face was painted vividly white and the eyes black, being, however, surrounded by red and yellow lines. The body, head, and arms were outlined red, the body being curiously painted with red stripes and bars.
"Upon the rock which formed the left hand wall of this cave, and which partly faced you on entering, was a very singular painting (2), vividly coloured, representing four heads joined together. From the mild expression of the countenances, I imagined them to represent females, and they appeared to be drawn in such a manner and in such a position as to look up at the principal figure which I have before described. Each had a very remarkable head-dress, coloured with a deep, bright blue, and one had a necklace on. Both of the lower figures had a sort of dress, painted with red, in the same manner as that of the principal figure, and one of them had a band round the waist. Each of the four faces was marked by a totally distinct expression of countenance, and although none of them had mouths, two, I thought, were otherwise rather good-looking. The whole painting was executed on a white ground, and its dimensions were:—
"Total length of painting 3 ft. 6¾ in."Breadth across two upper heads 2 ft. 6 in."Breadth across two lower heads 3 ft. 1½ in.
These remarkable paintings attracted Grey's attention, and led him wondering as to their origin. The solution to that problem he has however left to others. (Fig 1, see Appendix.)
According to him, the first two frescoes—i.e., those situated on the roof of the cave, representing the principal figure, and that representing the four persons (probably women), are one subject. A glance at their position, and the expression of their faces, leads one to accept Grey's opinion as not only admissible, but as the only accurate one. The group of women is placed in an attitude of prayer, or of submission towards the central figure, also representing a woman, as all except the head-dress, which is a little different, exactly resemble the others; it is also evident that the artist wished to represent a religious subject.
It is necessary to remark that the people among which these drawings have been found belong to an almost savage race, and in admitting that they may be the work of a superior race that once inhabited these parts (which, by the way, is the opinion of Sir George Grey), yet this superior race could hardly be any other but some Malay tribe. Among these latter, as well as among all savage, or semi-savage people, woman is considered as a being of an inferior order, more fit to become a slave than to be worshipped, and as the Malays had either adopted for centuries past, either one of two creeds, that of Buddhism from the Hindoos, or that of Mahomet from the Arabs, we look in vain, save in the former, and that in only one or two well-known instances, which cannot for a moment be entertained here, for the worship of a woman. The Malay religious artistic subjects that we know of are of an order far above that of which we have a sample here, and there is no resemblance at all in their paintings with anything depicted in these caves.
There are several points of importance with regard to these pictures, to which we beg to direct the reader's attention. In the first place, the perfect oval shape of the head; secondly, the colour of the face, which is painted VIVIDLY WHITE, evidently for some purpose; and thirdly, the fact that the kind of dress worn over the bodies exactly resembles that described by De Gonneville as worn by the women of the Southern Indies, made of some kind of matted material, sometimes also of skins, or of feathers, girt above the haunches and reaching to the knee. (Fig. 2, see Appendix.)
Compare, also, the date assigned by Grey to these pictures-two or three centuries, and this coincidence will appear still more remarkable.
But to return to the subject. It is difficult, if not impossible to credit the natives at the time of Grey's visit as being the authors of these paintings. The eminent traveller absolutely discredits such a possibility, and attributes them to a far distant epoch, and a totally different race. The perfect oval shape of the faces was not drawn so without a purpose, and neither were they painted so vividly white, if the artist had not desired to pourtray types of a race certainly not existing at present on the the Australian continent. It is difficult to admit that it might be of Malay origin, as tile head-dress, or to describe it more perfectly, the AUREOLA surrounding the head, is met with in Buddhist paintings or sculptures only as surrounding the head of gods, who can always be recognised by their peculiar and constant characteristics, and nowhere are these AUREOLAS surrounded with the rays in the shape of "FLAMÈCHES," which confront us in the drawing of the principal figure. (Fig. 3, see Appendix.) It resembles, indeed, much better Grey's own description:—
"Its head was encircled by bright red rays, something like the rays which one sees proceeding from the sun, when depicted on the sign board of a public house."
There is evidently here some strange mixture of European and Malay art, the former exhibited in the remarkable AUREOLAS which so commonly surround the heads of saints in the old images, in painted church windows of the middle ages, and the times of De Gonneville, and the latter in the kind of dress over the body, which appears to be meant to represent some sort of matted stuff. This painting is not the work of a native artist; it is unlikely that it could be the work of Malays, in the third place there is in its position and its peculiar appearance such a striking touch of an European conception, mingled with barbaric surroundings, that one is almost inclined to the belief that we are here in the presence of a subject of religious, nay, a Christian order.
This deduction may need additional evidence, and if the reader will kindly follow with us Lieutenant Grey's steps, he will be placed in the presence of a still more remarkable painting, which we shall presently describe.
"The cave was twenty feet deep, and at the entrance seven feet high and about forty feet wide. As before stated the floor gradually approached the roof in the direction of the bottom of the cavern, and its width also contracted so that at the extremity it was not broader than the slab of rock which formed a natural seat. The principal painting in it was the painting of a man ten feet six inches in length, clothed from the chin downwards in a red garment which reached to the wrists and ankles; beyond this red dress the feet and hands protruded, and were badly executed.
"The face and head of the figure were enveloped in a succession of circular bandages, or rollers, or what appeared to be painted to represent such. These were coloured red, yellow, and white, and the eyes were the only features represented on the face. Upon the highest bandage, or roller, a series of lines were painted in red, but although so irregularly done as to indicate that they have some meaning, it is impossible to tell whether they were intended to depict written characters or some ornament for the head. This figure was so drawn on the roof that its feet were just in front of the natural seat, whilst its head and face looked directly down on anyone who stood in the entrance of the cave, but it was totally invisible from the outside. The painting was more injured by the damp and atmosphere, and had the appearance of being much more defaced and ancient than any of the others which we have seen. There were two other paintings, one on each side of the rocks, which stood on either side of the natural seat: they were carefully executed, and yet had no apparent design in them, unless they were intended to represent some fabulous species of turtle; for the natives of Australia are generally fond of narrating tales of fabulous and extraordinary animals, such as gigantic snakes, etc." (Fig. 4, see Appendix.)
With this drawing, as well as in the others, it is evident that native talent had nothing to do. Neither had, in all probability, the Malays, as the form of the dress and its colour are incompatible with anything we know of these people. Then again the same AUREOLA surrounds the head of the figure, and we are inclined to think that this drawing is due to the same artist who painted those already described. Although Grey believes that it is a more ancient production, the face of it having suffered more than the other is in all probability due to it being more exposed to atmospheric, or other influences, rather than to its greater antiquity. There are, however, some very interesting points to examine in this drawing, and in the first place our attention is drawn to the curious signs inscribed on the AUREOLA surrounding the head.
At first sight, an illiterate person would at once exclaim, "these areLatin characters."
Five out of six undoubtedly are such, and the sixth appears to be part of an unfinished or defaced letter, probably F or E. This is evidently very remarkable, and more so is the fact which a closer examination discloses that near the right shoulder of the figure two additional characters, C D, also undoubtedly of Latin form, are there inscribed, proving the European origin of this drawing, which resembles exactly those paintings of the middle ages, representing some holy monk or nun in their habilaments, of a coarse, brown cloth, the hands, and still more so the feet in that, position which painters of religious subjects have rendered us so familiar with on the old church windows, and other paintings of those times. The practice of printing the name of the saint on the AUREOLA encircling the head is also a common one, and perhaps we may find there an explanation of that painting, which will also prove the others to be of like origin. These characters are, undoubtedly, Latin, whichever way one might like to turn them, and their appearance in such a spot is not due to chance alone. It would be a difficult task to attempt to explain their meaning, but, perhaps, a further exploration of these singular caves may bring to light information leading to their identification and explanation. Suffice it to say that they certainly tend to show the European and Christian character of these paintings, the first one probably representing the holy women praying before the Virgin, and the other some holy nun, as the line over the chin seems to indicate the well-known head-dress. It may be objected that the Virgin could hardly have been pourtrayed in such a costume, to which the answer may be made, that it was a common custom at the time, among the disciples of Francis Xavier who evangelised India, to represent the Virgin and the saints in the costume of the country, in order to bring them in an easier way to the conception of the native mind, a practice, need it be added, which brought on the head of the Jesuits the most severe condemnation.
If such is the case, and if these paintings are, as we believe, the work of Europeans, we might look in their vicinity for some other and still more convincing proof of their origin.
Such is afforded also, and the evidence is telling.
For the last time we shall quote the same eminent author, and at page 205 of vol. 1. of his work, we read:—
"After proceeding some distance, we found a cave larger than the one seen this morning; of its actual size, however, I have no idea, for being pressed for time I did not attempt to explore it, having merely ascertained that it contained no paintings. I was moving on when we observed a profile of a human face and head, cut out in a sandstone rock which fronted the cave; this rock was so hard that to have removed such a large portion of it with no better tool than a knife and hatchet made of stone, such as the Australian natives generally possess, would have been a work of very great labour. The head was two feet in length, and sixteen inches in breadth in the broadest part; the depth of the profile increased gradually from the edges where it was nothing, to the centre where it was an inch and a half. The ear was rather badly placed, but otherwise the whole of the work was good, and far superior to what a savage race could be supposed capable of executing. The only proof of antiquity that it bore about it was that all the edges of the cutting were rounded and perfectly smooth, much more so than they could have been from any other cause than long exposure to atmospheric influences.
"After having made a sketch of this head I returned to the party."
Now let us examine, without prepossession or prejudice, this remarkable sculpture, THE ONLY HEAD SCULPTURED IN ROCK EVER FOUND IN AUSTRALIA.
This profile is that of an European, the purity of the lines, the perfect shape of the head, the straight and well-formed nose, the finely-cut lips, the round chin, represent the most exact type of an European head that it could be possible to imagine. Indeed, the fact alone that the natives have no means of cutting out such a sculpture in the rock, is enough to induce one to seek elsewhere for its author, and the head is certainly not that of a Malay; the type is European, and that of the purest.
We shall go no further with this discussion, which the appearance of this sculptured profile of an European head closes on our behalf better than all volumes would do, and resume it in a few words.
De Gonneville, carried away by storms into unknown seas, lands on a coast which he estimates is situated to the south of India, and the Islands of Spices, and not far from the true course to the East Indies; at the entrance of a fine river, and in a fertile country, whose inhabitants he describes. They were in all probability of Malay stock, and there is no difficulty so far to understand his female relative having married a person of that race, the remnants of which have been met with since by other travellers.
Three hundred and thirty-five years after De Gonneville's voyage, King and Grey explore in the north-west part of Australia, a country whose description well answers to that visited by De Gonneville, and NEVER SET FOOT UPON BY EUROPEANS IN THE INTERVAL. There Grey finds a river such as De Gonneville describes—a land inhabited by races that have preserved many of the customs of the "Australians" described by the Norman captain with whom, as a volunteer in the voyage, had travelled a certain Nicole Le Fevre, a man of some learning' and a kind of artist, who had pourtrayed strange beasts, etc., "utterly unknown in Christendom." In that country', at a very short distance from the coast, Grey discovers curious paintings, some strikingly resembling the pictures of saints as represented on the Church windows of the time, one of them bearing some very remarkable European letters and characters, and last of all he finds there the head of an European sculptured in the hard rock, evidently with instruments such as the natives do not possess.
What are we to conclude from these facts? That there is strong evidence that De Gonneville, who could have landed nowhere else but on Australian soil, had precisely landed on that part of the country visited by Grey, and that the paintings discovered are the work of some of his companions.
But although such evidence is strong indeed, it is not yet absolutely perfect, even for one desirous of solving the problem of fixing the exact position of the spot visited by the Norman sailor. Others, perhaps, may give a different interpretation to the figures and the characters represented above; they are, however, worthy of attracting notice, and if the result of this investigation is only to draw the attention of those who are interested in ascertaining the previous history of the country they inhabit and love, be they members of scientific societies or of colonial governments, the task undertaken will not prove a thankless one.
One thing is settled, however, beyond the possibility of doubt, and that is, that De Gonneville landed on no other soil but that of Australia, and nowhere else but at the mouth of some of the north-western rivers.
The maps of the sixteenth century, known to have existed long before the voyages of the Dutch and the English, bear witness to the fact that the north-western part of the coast of Australia was sighted by the Portuguese on their voyages to and from the East Indies and the Spice Islands.
A critical examination of these charts, some of which have been reproduced for the Public Libraries of the chief Australian cities from the originals in the British Museums, tends to show—although most of the names of features on the north-west coast are in French—that some of them appear to have been translated from the Portuguese. The older of these charts bears the date of the year 1542, but there are two more maps in the "Bibliotheque Nationale de France" which are still more ancient. One, which is the work of Guillaume Le Testu, a pilot of Dieppe, shows a portion of the coast in a fairly correct position, indicating features which can easily be recognised, although their longitude and latitude are not exact; the names, which are all in French, do not exhibit any sign of having been translated from any other language; and there is little doubt that Le Testu, who published this chart in 1536, must have heard of the expedition of De Gonneville, which could hardly have failed to attract attention at the time among the sailors of note in the ports of the Normandy coast. Considering the state of geographical science at that epoch, the delineation of the north-west coast of the Australian continent is certainly as accurate as that of the island of Java and minor islands in those regions, which were much better known, and there is in this fact evidence enough that the data upon which Le Testu, Jean Rotz, and other cartographers worked, must have been fairly accurate. The Norman pilot shows on his map the entrance of several rivers and features which closely resemble the outline of this coast as at present known, but except in the vicinity of the rivers mentioned, the coast on the south and the north-east is prolonged without data, and merely indicates a probable extension of land in these directions. The other maps agree fairly well in this respect, the outlines of very small portions only of the coast being—susceptible of identification at present. From these facts we may infer that Guillaume Le Testu probably obtained much of his information from the report of De Gonneville, whilst Rotz and the authors of the maps in the British Museum had theirs from Portuguese sources, and as the latters' delineation of the north-west coast is less accurate, it may be that the Portuguese sailors, from whose reports this information was obtained, merely sighted these coasts without attempting to land.
To close this discussion, it may be added, that in most instances the early voyages of the Dutch or possibly the Portuguese to Western Australia were the result of such accidents as befell De Gonneville, as they were carried by storms out of their course to India or the Sunda Islands, and thrown on the west coast of the Australian Continent.
The first claim to the discovery of the Australian Continent may be, therefore, settled in favor of De Gonneville; although, there is little doubt that the existence of a great southern land was suspected by the Chinese, and also by the ancients. This great land, situated on the opposite side of the world, was named by them ANTI-CHTON, and its supposed inhabitants "Antichtones," and the fact of the possibility of it being inhabited at all gave rise to a good deal of discussion among ancient writers. They, however, agreed in the belief that "the fury of the sun, which burns the intermediate zone," rendered it inaccessible to the inhabitants of the world. Plinus, Pomponius Mela, Scipio, Virgilius, Cicero, and Macrobius considered this land as habitable, and the two last mentioned authors held the opinion that it was inhabited by a different race of beings.
This question was also debated by the early Christian fathers, and perhaps the most remarkable argument against the existence of the ANTICHTONES will be found in the works of the celebrated theologian and venerated father, St. Augustine, who devotes the whole of Chapter IX., Book XVI. of his admirable work, "De Civitate Dei," to the discussion of this knotty question.
"Quod verò," writes St. Augustine, "Antipodes esse fabulantur, id est, homines a contaria parte terrae, ubi sol oritur, quando occidit nobis, adversa pedibus nostris calcare vestigia, nulla ratione credendum est. Neque hoc ulla historica cognitione didicisse se affirmant, sed quali ratiocinando conjectant, es quod intra con vexa coeli terra suspenda sit, eum demque locum mundas habeat, et infirmum, et medium: et ex hoc opinantur alteram terra pattern, quae infra est, habitatione hominum carere non posse. Nec adtendunt, etiamsi figura conglobata et rotunda mundus esse credatur, sive aliqua ratione monstretur; non tamen esse consequens, ut etiam ex illa parte ab aquarum congerie nuda sit terra devide etiamus nuda sit, neque hoc statum necesse esse, ut homines habeat, Quoniam nulla modo Scriptura ista mentitur, quae narratis praeteritis facis sidem, eo quod ejus praedicta complentur: nimisque absurdurn est, ut dicatur aliquos hornines ex hae in illam partem, oceani immensitate trajecta, navigare ac pervenive potuisse, ut etiarn illic ex uno illo primo hornine genus institueretur hurnanurn?"
The substance of which is: "That there can be nothing more absurd than the belief of some ancient writers who imagined that the land on the opposite side of the world could be inhabited by human beings. Those who made this assertion admit they have no historical fact to base it upon, and that it is merely a logical deduction of philosophy. But if we accept as true the principles upon which they base their arguments, is it to be necessarily admitted that because these countries are habitable, that they are in reality inhabited. As the Holy Scripture, which is our guide in all matters of belief, makes no mention of this, and as it is an accepted fact that the descendants of our first parents could not have sailed to and reached these countries, how is it possible that they could be inhabited."
Although the existence of a great Austral land was a subject of philosophical and theological discussion among the ancients, they, however, never attempted to sail across that ocean which was the limit of the world they knew. It is possible that the Chinese may have been more bold, but it is very doubtful whether they ever sailed so far south as to land on the coast of the Australian continent. They have left no trace of their passage, either on the land itself, or among its inhabitants. Besides, the Chinese were never very enterprising sailors, the form of their junks, their peculiar sails, and the scantiness of their nautical knowledge prevented them from extending very far the radius of their maritime explorations. Marco Polo is the authority generally quoted in this matter, as he states that the people of Cathay knew of the existence of a great land far to the southward, with the inhabitants of which they were accustomed to trade. This is rather an indefinite description, and might apply to New Guinea as well as to the Australian Continent. More so to the former and the islands surrounding it on the north and east, where evidence exists of the voyage of the Chinese traders and fishermen in search of the precious trepang. But as these holothuriae are generally found in the vicinity of the coral banks of Polynesia, to the eastward of New Guinea, and not in the direction of the Australian coast, there is much reason to think that the Chinese claim to the discovery of this continent is purely mythical, although, like the ancients, they may have believed in its existence as a logical deduction of philosophy.
Captain Cook compared to former Visitors—Point Hicks—Botany Bay-First natives seen—Indifference to Overtures—Abundant flora—Entrance to Port Jackson missed—ENDEAVOUR on a reef—Careened—Strange animals—Hostile natives—A sailor's devil—Possession Island-Territory of New South Wales—Torres Straits a passage—La Perouse—Probable fate discovered by Captain Dillon—M'Cluer touches Arnheim's Land—Bligh and Portlock—Wreck of the PANDORA—Vancouver in the south—The D'Entrecasteaux quest—Recherche Archipelago—Bass and Flinders—Navigation and exploration extraordinary—The TOM THUMB—Bass explores south—Flinders in the Great Bight—Bass's Straits—Flinders in the INVESTIGATOR—Special instructions—King George's Sound—Lossof boat's crew—Memory Cove—Baudin's courtesy—Port Phillip—INVESTIGATOR and LADY NELSON on East Coast—The Gulf of Carpentaria and early Dutch navigators—Duyfhen Point—Cape Keer-Weer—Mythical rivers charted—Difficulty in recognising their landmarks—Flinders' great disappointment—A rotten ship—Return by way of West Coast—Cape Vanderlin—Dutch Charts—Malay proas, Pobassoo—Return to Port Jackson—Wreck of the PORPOISE—Prisoner by the French—General de Caen—Private papers and journals appropriated—Prepares his charts and logs for press—Death—Sympathy by strangers—Forgotten by Australia—The fate of Bass—Mysterious disappearance—Supposed Death.
The maritime exploration of our coast may be said to have fairly commenced on the morning of the 19th of April, 1770, when Captain Cook first sighted land. True we had many visitors before, [See Introduction.] but none had given the same attention to the work, with an eye to future colonisation, nor sailed along such an extent of shore.
The present coast of Gippsland was the place that first caught the attention of Lieutenant Hicks on that eventful morning, and Point Hicks received its name in commemoration of the incident.
From this point they sailed eastward, and at the promontory, where the coast turned to the north, the name of Cape Howe was bestowed. Cook, fresh from the shores of New Zealand and its more rugged scenery, was pleasingly impressed with his distant view of Australia, but it must have been the force of contrast only, as the portion of Australia first sighted by him is devoid of interest. No available landing place was seen; the shore was too tame, and for many days they coasted along, looking for a break, or entrance, but none could he found where a safe landing could be effected.
Botany Bay was the spot where the men from the ENDEAVOUR sprang on shore for the first time, and although the flora of the surrounding country brought joy to the heart of Mr. Banks, the botanist, it could not have held out very high hopes of the future to the others.
Here they first saw the natives, "Indians," as Cook calls them, and hoped to effect a peaceable landing. He says:—
"The place where the ship had anchored was abreast of a small village, consisting of about six or eight houses; and while we were preparing to hoist out the boat, we saw an old woman followed by three children come out of the wood; she was loaded with firewood, and each of the children had also its little burden. She often looked at the ship, but expressed neither fear nor surprise. In a short time she kindled a fire, and four canoes came in from fishing. The men landed, and having hauled up their boats, began to dress their dinner, to all appearances, wholly unconcerned about us, though we were within half-a-mile of them. We thought it remarkable that of all the people we had yet seen, not one had the least appearance of clothing, the old woman herself being destitute even of a fig leaf.
"After dinner the boats were manned, and we set out from the ship. We intended to land where we saw the people, and began to hope that as they so little regarded the ship's coming into the bay, they would as little regard our coming on shore. In this, however, we were disappointed, for as soon as we approached the rocks, two men came down upon them to dispute our landing, and the rest ran away."
For some time they parleyed with the blacks, and threw them nails, beads, and other trifles, trying to make them understand that only water was wanted, and no harm would be done them; but the natives refused all offers of friendship, and three charges of small shot had to be fired at their legs before they would even allow a peaceable landing.
Many expeditions were made inland for plants, birds, and flowers, also to try if some intercourse could be established with the natives, but after the first contest they would not come near enough to speak to. Nor did they touch any of the presents—beads, ribbons, and cloth, that had been left about and in their huts.
The great quantity of plants collected here by Mr. Banks induced Cook to give it the name of Botany Bay. The King's colours were hoisted each day of the stay, and the ship's name with the date of the year was inscribed upon one of the trees near the watering place.
Having now provided a supply of fresh water, the anchor was weighed on the 6th of May, and they sailed northward. Unaware of what he had missed, Cook passed the entrance of Port Jackson, and followed up the coast for over a thousand miles to the north, without incident or adventure, beyond the routine work of the ship. But, on June 10th, this quiet was rudely broken by the ENDEAVOUR running on a coral reef when off the site of the present town of Cooktown. Fortunately a jagged point of coral stuck in the hole made, and acted as a plug, otherwise this voyage of Cook's would have proved his last, and the history of this continent been much delayed and altered.
Passing a sail under the hull, and throwing guns and other stores overboard, Cook got his ship once more afloat, and took her into the mouth of a river (now the Endeavour River) where, on a convenient beach, she was careened, and the carpenters set to work to repair her, whilst a forge was set up, and the smiths occupied making bolts and nails. Many animals strange to them were seen, and among them the first kangaroo. One of the firemen who had been rambling in the woods, told them, on his return, that he verily believed he had seen the devil.
"We naturally enquired in what form he had appeared, and his answer was in so singular a style, that I shall set it down in his own words. 'He was,' says John, 'as large as a one gallon keg, and very like it; he had horns and wings, yet he crept so slowly through the grass that if I had not been afeared, I might have touched him.' This formidable apparition we afterwards discovered to have been a bat. They have indeed no horns, but the fancy of a man who thought he saw the devil might easily supply that defect."
Many excursions Mr. Banks and the men made inland, finding one very useful plant, at the time when scurvy had appeared among them, a plant that in the West Indies is called Indian Kale, and served them for greens.
Some communication was established with the natives, but it ended as usual by their commencing to steal, and having to be chastised for it. In revenge they set fire to the grass, and the navigator very nearly lost his whole stock of gunpowder. He was astonished by the extreme inflammability of the grass and the consequent difficulty in putting it out, and vowed if ever he had to camp in such a situation again, he would first clear the grass around. Leaving the Endeavour River, Cook, after passing through the Barrier Reef and again repassing it, as he says, "After congratulating ourselves upon passing the reef we again congratulate ourselves upon repassing it," landed no more until he had left Cape York, and there on an island called "Possession Island," he formally took possession of the east coast of New Holland, under the name of New South Wales, for his Majesty King George III.
This ceremony concluded, and rejoicing in the re-discovery of Torres Straits—the waters of which had borne no keel since the gallant Spaniard had passed through—he sailed to New Guinea, Cook having thus completed the survey of that portion of the South Land so long left a blank upon the map, never returned—unless his visit to Van Dieman's Land, in 1777, can be called a visit-to our shores, but the names he bestowed on the many bays, headlands, and islands of the east coast have clung to them ever since. So accurate were his surveys, even under extreme difficulties, that he left little for his successors to do but investigate those portions of the coast he had been forced to overlook.
But Cook's fame and career are such household words amongst all English-speaking races, and the results of his visit to Australia so extensive, that no space that this history could afford would be sufficiently large to appreciate the merits of his work.
When Phillip landed in Botany Bay he was followed, as is well known, by the distinguished French navigator, La Perouse, and although the name of this unfortunate man does not enter largely into the history of our colonisation, it is essential that it should come under notice. After a short stay, La Perouse sailed from Australian shores, and of him and his stately ships no tidings ever reached Europe. Years passed, and Captain Dillon, the master of an English vessel trading amongst the South Sea Islands, found a sword-belt in the possession of the natives; this led to further investigations, and the hapless story was finally elucidated.
Wrecked on the coast of one of the islands, and all attempts to save the ships having proved futile, the crews took to the boats, only to suffer death from drowning or at the hands of the savages. The guns and other heavy equipment were afterwards recovered, proving beyond doubt that that was the end of the French vessels and their unhappy commander-the Leichhardt of the sea.
In 1791, Lieutenant McCluer, of the Bombay Marine, touched upon the northern coast of Arnheim's Land, but as he did not land, no result accrued to the continent from his coming.
Before his advent, however, Captain Bligh, making his way home from the spot where the mutineers of the BOUNTY had set him afloat, passed through Torres Straits, and sighted the mainland of Australia. Situated as he was, he could do little more than take hasty observations.
Two years afterwards, the PANDORA, under Captain Edwards, struck on a reef in Torres Straits, and sank in deep water. Thirty-nine of the crew were drowned, and the remainder, destitute of almost everything, made for the coast of Australia in four boats. Edwards landed on Prince of Wales Island, but not on the mainland. He finally reached Timor, with his shipwrecked men, amongst whom were some of the mutineers of the BOUNTY. Many of these men had been obliged to remain on board perforce, and in no way participated in that famous mutiny. Their treatment by the captain of the PANDORA, and afterwards by the English authorities, was both harsh and unjust.
In 1792, the PROVIDENCE and ASSISTANT, Captains Bligh and Portlock, sailed through the Straits, conveying the bread-fruit plant from Tahiti to the West Indies. Serving in this expedition was Lieutenant Flinders.
In 1791, Captain George Vancouver, on his way to America, came to the southern shore, and found and named King George's Sound. He landed and examined the country, but saw nothing of any consequence, and, after a short stay, sailed away to the eastward, intending to follow the coast line, but was prevented by baffling winds.
In 1793, previously to the INVESTIGATOR, and in the year following Bligh and Portlock, Messrs. William Bampton and Matthew B. Alt, commanders of the ships HORMUZEER and CHESTERFELD, sailed from Norfolk Island, with the intention of passing through Torres Straits by a route which the commanders did not know had been before attempted.
The terrible dangers of the Straits encountered appear to have deterred others from following them up to the time of the INVESTIGATOR.
Vancouver was quickly followed in the year 1792 by M. D'Entrecasteaux, who, having with him the ships LA RECHERCHE and L'ESPÉRANCE, was in quest of the fate of La Perouse. Off Termination Island-the last land seen by Vancouver—a gale sprang up, and the French ships had to seek shelter. They remained at anchor a week, and the officers made many excursions to the islands now known as the Recherche Archipelago.
He sailed along some portions of the Great Bight, which he described as of "an aspect so uniform that the most fruitful imagination could find nothing to say of it." Water failing him, he steered for Van Dieman's Land.
We now come across one of the grandest names in the history of our colony. Bass, the surgeon of the RELIANCE, whose work has survived him in the name of the well-known strait.
In a tiny cockle shell, the TOM THUMB, a boat of eight feet long, he and Flinders, at first but an adventurous middy, cruised around the coast and examined every inlet and opening visible, at the very peril of their lives. It is almost equal to an imaginative story of adventures to read the tale of their various trips, suffice it they did good work, and came back safely to carry that work on with better and fuller means.
A voyage to Norfolk Island interrupted their further proceedings until the next year, 1796. Bass and Flinders then again, in the TOM THUMB, left to explore a large river, said to fall in the sea some miles to the south of Botany Bay, and of which there was no indication in Cook's chart.
In 1797, Bass obtained leave to make an expedition to the southward and was furnished with a whale boat and a crew of six men. Although he sailed with only six weeks' provisions, by birds and fish caught, and abstinence, he was enabled to prolong his voyage to eleven weeks, and his labours were crowned with a success not to be expected from such frail means. In the three hundred miles of coast examined from Port Jackson to Ram Head, a number of discoveries were made that had escaped Captain Cook.
From Ram Head—the southernmost part of the coast that had been examined by Cook-Bass began to reap a rich harvest of important discoveries, and another three hundred miles followed, the appearance of which confirmed his belief in the existence of a strait between the continent and Van Dieman's Land.
It was with great reluctance he returned before verifying this belief beyond doubt of others.
In September, 1798, we find him on board the NORFOLK, associated with Flinders, seeking to prove his theory. After many and strong head winds, and much delay, the two had the supreme pleasure of greeting the westward ocean, and returning to Port Jackson with the tidings.
Flinders says:—
In 1799, Flinders, in the NORFOLK, followed up Cook's discoveries in the neighbourhood of Glass House Bay, and in 1801 we must accompany him on his great voyage round Terra Australis.
The north coast of Australia, both from its more interesting formation and the lack of settlement, has received a good deal of attention from our navigators of the present century, and by far the most fascinating part of Captain Flinders' log refers to the north coast.
In 1802, we find him following the track of M. D'Entrecasteaux round the Great Bight. Flinders seems to have been as much puzzled as he was regarding the great extent of level cliffs passed. He conjectures that within this bank, as he terms it, there could be nothing but sandy plains or water, and that, in all probability, it formed a barrier between an exterior and interior sea. He little thought how, some years afterwards, a lonely white man would tramp round those barren cliffs, eagerly scanning Flinders' chart for any sign of a break in their iron uniformity.
On February 16th, 1801, Matthew Flinders was promoted to the rank of commandant, and left England with the INVESTIGATOR, to prosecute his voyage to Terra Australis. His instructions were:—
"To make the best of your way to New Holland, running down the coast from 130 degrees east longitude to BASS'S Straits, putting, if you should find it necessary, into KING GEORGE THE THIRD'S HARBOUR for refreshments and water, previous to your commencing the survey, and on your arrival on the coast, use your best endeavour to discover such harbours as may be in those parts, and in case you shall discover any creek or opening likely to lead to an INLAND SEA OR STRAIT, you are at liberty either to examine it or not, as you 'shall judge it most expedient, until a more favourable opportunity shall enable you so to do.
"When it shall appear to you necessary, you shall repair to SYDNEY COVE, for the purpose of refreshing your people, refitting the sloop under your command, and consulting the Governor of New South Wales upon the best means of carrying on the survey of the coast; and having received from him such information as he may be able to communicate, and taken under your command the LADY NELSON tender, which you may expect to find in Sydney Cove, you are to recommence your survey by first diligently examining the coast from BASS'S Straits to KING GEORGE THE THIRD'S HARBOUR."
Flinders was then instructed to repair from time to time to Sydney Cove, to be very diligent in the examination, and to take particular care to insert in his journal every circumstance that might be useful to a full and complete knowledge of the coast—the wind, weather, the productions, comparative fertility of the soil, the manners and customs of the inhabitants, and to examine the country as far inland as it was prudent to venture with so small a party as could be spared from the vessel whenever a chance of discovering anything useful to the commerce or manufacturies of the United Kingdom.
From thence they were to explore the north-west coast of New Holland, where, from the extreme height of tides observed by Dampier, it was thought probable valuable harbours might be found; also the Gulf of Carpentaria and the parts to the westward. When that was completed, a careful investigation and accurate survey of Torres Straits; then an examination of the whole of the remainder of the north, the west, and the north-west coasts of New Holland.
"So soon as you shall have completed the whole of these surveys and examinations as above directed, you are to proceed to, and examine very carefully the east coast of New Holland, seen by Captain Cook, from Cape Flattery to the Bay of Inlets; and in order to refresh your people, and give the advantages of variety to the painters, you are at liberty to touch at the Fijis, or some other islands in the South Seas."
As soon as the whole of the examinations and surveys were completed, he was to lose no time in returning with the sloop under his command to England.
The vessel was fitted with a plant cabin for the purpose of making botanical collections for the Royal Gardens at Kew, and on each return to Sydney Cove, all plants, trees, shrubs, etc., were to be transferred to the Governor's garden until the INVESTIGATOR sailed for Europe.
King George's Sound being chosen as the place to prepare themselves for the examination of the south coast of Terra Australis, they anchored off Point Possession, on the south side of the entrance to Princess Royal Harbour, previous to wind and water being favourable for entering the harbour to refit and procure wood and fresh water.
Many excursions were made by the naturalist, botanist, and artist, and a new survey of King George's Sound made.
"On the east side of the entrance to Princess Royal Harbour we landed, and found a spot of ground six or eight feet square dug up and trimmed like a garden, and upon it was lying a piece of sheet copper bearing this inscription:—
This answered the finding of the felled trees on Point Possession, also of the disappearance of the bottle left by Captain Vancouver in 1791, containing parchment that Flinders had looked for on landing.
In Flinders' description of the country in the neighbourhood of KingGeorge's Sound he says:—
"The basis stone is granite, which frequently shows itself at the surface in the form of smooth, bare rock; but upon the sea-coast hills and the shores on the south side of the sound and Princess Royal Harbour the granite is generally covered with a crust of calcareous stone, as it is also upon Michaelmas Island. Captain Vancouver mentions having found upon the top of Bald Head branches of coral protruding through the sand, exactly like those seen in the coral beds beneath the surface of the sea—a circumstance which would seem to bespeak this country to have emerged from the ocean at no very distant period of time.
"This curious fact I was desirous to verify, and his description proved to be correct. I found, also, two broken columns of stone, three or four feet high, formed like stumps of trees, and of a thickness superior to the body of a man, but whether this was coral or wood now petrified, or whether they might not have been calcareous rocks worn into that particular form by the weather I cannot determine. Their elevation above the present level of the sea could not have been less than four hundred feet."
On January 4th, 1802, a bottle containing parchment, to inform future visitors of their arrival and departure, was left on the top of Seal Island, and on the morrow they sailed out of King George's Sound to continue the survey eastwards. They anchored on the 28th in Fowler's Bay—the extremity of the then known south coast of Terra Australis.
Off Cape Catastrophe, a cutter, with eight men, was sent on shore in search of an anchorage where water could be procured. Nothing of the boat and crew was again seen but the wreck of the boat showing that it had been stove in by the rocks. After a careful but hopeless search for the men, their pressing need for water caused them to abandon further delay, and they left to examine the opening to the northward.
"I caused an inscription to be engraven upon a sheet of copper, and set it up on a stout post at the head of the cove, which I named Memory Cove, and further to commemorate our loss, I gave each of the six islands nearest to Cape Catastrophe the name of one of the seamen."
Flinders sailed up the gulf, which he called Spencer's Gulf, and had a long look towards the interior from the summit of Mount Brown.
The Gulf of St. Vincent then fell to his share to discover, and shortly afterwards he met with the French ship LE GÉOGRAPHE Captain Baudin; says Flinders:—
"We veered round as LE GÉOGRAPHE was passing, so as to keep our broadside to her, lest the flag of truce should be a deception, and having come to the wind on the other tack, a boat was hoisted out, and I went on board the French ship, which had also hove to."
The two Captains exchanged passports and information, but Flinders was afterwards much annoyed to find on the publication of M. Péron's book, that all his late discoveries had been rechristened with French names, and, in fact, his work ignored completely. Parting from the French ship in Encounter Bay, as he named it, the English navigator sailed for Port Jackson.
Suddenly coming to the Harbour of Port Phillip, Flinders thinks he has entered Port Western, but finds his mistake next morning; then congratulates himself upon having made a new and most useful discovery, he says:—
"There I was again in error, this place, as I afterwards learned in PortJackson had been discovered ten weeks before by Lieutenant John Murray,in command of the LADY NELSON. He had given to it the name of PortPhillip, and to the rocky point on the east side of the entrance PointNepean."
On the 9th May, the INVESTIGATOR anchors in Sydney Cove, and again left in company with the LADY NELSON, on the morning Of July 22nd, for the examination of the east coast, making many discoveries before reaching Torres Straits that had escaped Captain Cook, among others Port Curtis and Port Bowen.
The LADY NELSON in consequence of being disabled left the INVESTIGATOR on the east coast, and returned to Port Jackson.
We will again take up Flinders' narrative during his examination of the Gulf of Carpentaria, which had not been visited since the days of the Dutch ships. The first point Flinders mentions finding corroborative of the fidelity of their charts is the entrance to the Batavia River and there is no doubt that this spot is indicated by the words "fresh water," in the map accredited to Tasman, as there is a capital boat entrance of two fathoms to this stream, and at a comparatively short distance from the mouth of the water at low tide is quite fresh. This river heads from a plateau of springs, a tableland covered with scrubby heath, and intersected by scores of running gullies, boggy and impassable; in fact, the same country as caused such trouble to the Jardine brothers when they explored this shore of the Gulf.
From this place, however, Flinders seems very doubtful as to the identity of some of the rivers laid down. One point, the most remarkable on the coast, and which Yet was not in the Dutch chart, Flinders named "Duyfhen Point," and another, he called "Pera Head," after the second yacht that entered the Gulf.
At Cape Keer-Weer he fairly gives in that he could see nothing approaching a cape, but a slight projection being visible from the mast-head, out of respect to antiquity, he puts it down on his map. The "Vereenidge River" he concludes, has no existence, and the "Nassau River" turned out to be a lagoon at the back of a beach. Still the existence of anything approaching the reality of what was indicated on the charts, proves that at any rate the ships had been there, even if they had not kept close enough to the land to be quite certain of what they saw. So shallow is the approach to this shore, that when so far from land even at the mast-head the tops of the trees could only be partially distinguished, Flinders only found from four to six fathoms of water.
Of the Staaten River he says that—"Where that river can be found I know not," and at last he begins to fancy that the formation of the mouths of the rivers must have altered since Tasman's time.
Reaching the head of the Gulf, Flinders sighted a hill, which gave him hope of a change in the flat monotony of the coast he had now followed for one hundred and seventy-five leagues. This Will, which turned out to 'be an island, Flinders judged to be a headland marked on the western side of "Maatsuyker's River." The river he failed to discover, to the island he gave the name of Sweer's Island. Here Flinders remained some time, having found fresh water, and an anchorage adapted to cleaning and caulking his ship. But a great disappointment awaited him. The report of the master and carpenter who overhauled the INVESTIGATOR, was to the effect that the ship was perfectly rotten. It ends in these words:—
"From the state to which the ship seems now advanced, it is our joint opinion that in twelve months there will scarcely be a sound timber in her; but that if she remains in fine weather and happen no accident, she may run six months longer without much risk."
This was a death blow to Flinders' hope of so completing the survey of the coast, that no after work should be necessary. Under the circumstances, he determined to finish the exploration of the Gulf, and then to proceed to Port Jackson by way of the west coast, should the ship prove capable, if not to make for the nearest port in the West Indies.
Leaving Sweer's Island, Flinders next investigated Cape Van Dieman, and found it to be an island, which he called Mornington Island. Cape Vanderlin of the Dutch was the next point sighted, and it too was an island, one of the Sir Edward Pellew Group. On taking leave of this group, Flinders remarks on these discrepancies as follows:—
As no marked change has taken place since Flinders' survey, we may conclude that his last conclusion is the right one, and that a great deal in conjecture was brought to bear on the construction of the chart.
Still following the bend of the gulf, Flinders next ascertained that Cape Maria was only an island (Maria Island) and so with many points up to the northern termination of the Gulf. Along part of the southern and most western shore of Carpentaria many indications of the Malay visits were found—scraps of bamboo, rude stone fireplaces, and stumps of mangrove trees, cut down with iron axes. When amongst the English Company's Islands, a fleet of proas was met with, fishing for trepang. A friendly interview was obtained with them, and from the chief, Pobassoo, Flinders learnt that this was the sixth or seventh voyage that he had made to the Australian coast. He had a great horror of the pigs on board the INVESTIGATOR, but a decided liking for the port wine with which he was regaled.
The state of his vessel now decided Flinders to relinquish the survey, thinking himself fortunate in having escaped any heavy weather.
"We had continued the survey of the coast for more than one-half of the six months the master and carpenter had judged the ship might run without much risk, provided she remained in fine weather, and no accidents happened; and the remainder of the time being not much more than necessary for us to reach Port Jackson, I judged it imprudent to continue the investigation longer. In addition, the state of my own health, and that of the ship's company, were urgent to terminate the examination here . . . . It was, however, not without much regret that I quitted the coast . . . . The accomplishment of the survey was, in fact, an object so near my heart, that could I have foreseen the train of ills that were to follow the decay of the INVESTIGATOR, and prevent the survey being resumed-and had my existence depended upon the expression of a wish—I do not know that it would have received utterance."
Thinking himself fortunate in escaping any heavy weather, he sailed forCoepang, and from there to Port Jackson.
In July, 1803, in the PORPOISE, Captain Flinders, with the officers and men of the INVESTIGATOR, left Port Jackson for England, to procure another vessel to continue the survey left incomplete on the north coast, but were wrecked on Wreck Reef, and afterwards taken prisoners by the French.
His subsequent career and early death were both unhappy, and no effort has been made by either England or Australia to do tardy justice to his name. After his shameful detention in the Isle of France, and his reluctant release, he returned to England to find his rightful promotion in the navy had been passed over during his long years of captivity, and that the licensed bravo of Napoleon, General de Caen, had retained (stolen would be the right word) his private journals; and it was only after much trouble and correspondence between the two Governments that they were restored. Flinders completed the work of his life by preparing for the press his charts and logs, and died on the 14th June, 1814, of-there is every reason to believe—a broken heart.
Captain King, when he visited the Isle of France after his Australian surveys, speaks with pride of the kindly memory entertained by the residents for the unfortunate Flinders, and the contempt bestowed upon his cowardly gaoler.
Australia at the time of the explorer's detention was not certainly in a position to demand his liberation. But what has been done since? Sir John Franklin, an official visitor to our shores, erected a memorial to him in the little township of Port Lincoln—a tribute to a brother sailor. Ask the average native-born Australian of the southern colonies about Flinders. He will tell you that it is the name of a street in Melbourne. In Queensland, the boy will say that it is the name of a river somewhere in the colony. That is the amount of honour Australia has bestowed on her greatest navigator.
What was the fate of his companion, Bass?
After the return from the investigation of Bass's Straits, the young surgeon shipped on board an armed merchant vessel on a voyage to South America. At Valparaiso the governor of the town refused to allow the vessel to trade. Bass, who was then in command, threatened to bombard the town if the refusal was not withdrawn. It was rescinded, but, watching their opportunity, the authorities seized Bass when he was off his guard, and it is supposed that he was sent to the mines in the interior, where he died. He was never heard of again, nor was any attempt made to ascertain his fate.
Not only can we admire both of these men for their dauntless courage, so often tried, but all their work on the coast of Australia was done with no hope of ulterior gain for themselves; their one thought was the extension of geographical knowledge and the benefit of their fellow men.