The Explorers by Tim Flannery Read Free Book Online Page A

me, who had done nothing all this while, having come out unarmed; and I returned back with my men, designing to attempt the natives no farther, being very sorry for what had happened already.
    They took up their wounded companion; and my young man, who had been struck through the cheek by one of their lances, was afraid it had been poisoned; but I did not think that likely. His wound was very painful to him, being made with a blunt weapon, but he soon recovered of it.

J AMES C OOK
    Botany Bay, 1770

    James Cook is justly regarded as the greatest maritime explorer of his age, perhaps of all time. In 1 770 he charted the east coast of Australia, touching land five times—first of all at what is now Botany Bay. Cook initially named it Stingray Bay, for the enormous stingrays caught there, and he correctly surmised that these creatures were never hunted by the Aborigines. After giving the botanists Banks and Solander time to collect a cornucopia of plant specimens, he changed the name in honour of their work, set sail, and coasted serenely past a safe anchorage he named Port Jackson—thus failing to discover Sydney’s astonishing harbour.
    6 May—In the evening the yawl returned from fishing having caught two stingrays weighing near 600 pounds. The great quantity of new plants etc. Mr Banks and Dr Solander collected in this place occasioned my giving it the name of Botany Bay. It is situated in the latitude of 34° 0’ south, longitude 208° 37’ west. It is capacious, safe and commodious.
    It may be known by the land on the sea coast which is of a pretty even and moderate height, rather higher than it is farther inland with steep rocky cliffs next to the sea and looks like a long island lying close under the shore. The entrance of the harbour lies about the middle of this land; in coming from the southward it is discovered before you are abreast of it which you cannot do in coming from the northward; the entrance is little more than a mile broad and lies in WNW …
    We anchored near the south shore about a mile within the entrance for the conveniency of sailing with a southerly wind and the getting of fresh water, but I afterwards found a very fine stream of fresh water on the north shore in the first sandy cove within the island, before which a ship might lay almost landlocked, and wood for fuel may be got everywhere. Although wood is here in great plenty yet there is very little variety; the largest trees are as large or larger than our oaks in England and grows a good deal like them and yields a reddish gum; the wood itself is heavy, hard and black like lignum vitae; another sort that grows tall and straight something like pines, the wood of this is hard and ponderous and something of the nature of American live oaks; these two are all the timber trees I met with.
    There are a few sorts of shrubs and palm trees and mangroves about the head of the harbour. The country is woody, low and flat as far inland as we could see and I believe the soil is generally sandy; in the wood are a variety of very beautiful birds such as cockatoos, lorikeets, parrots etc., and crows exactly like those we have in England. Waterfowl are no less plenty about the head of the harbour where there are large flats of sand and mud on which they seek their food: the most of these unknown to us, one sort especially which was black and white and as large as a goose but most like a pelican.
    On the sand and mud banks are oysters, mussels, cockles etc., which I believe are the chief support of the inhabitants, who go into the shoaled water with their little canoes and pick them out of the sand and mud with their hands and sometimes roast and eat them in the canoe, having often a fire for that purpose as I suppose, for I know of no other use it can be for. The natives do not appear to be numberous, neither do they seem to live in large bodies but dispersed in small parties along by the water side; those I saw were about as tall