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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 by Robert Kerr

R >> Robert Kerr >> A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13




The north-east entrance of this passage or streight lies in the latitude
of 10 deg. 39' S., and in the longitude of 218 deg. 36' W. It is formed by the
main, or the northern extremity of New Holland, on the S.E., and by a
congeries of islands, which I called the _Prince of Wales's Islands_, to
the N.W., and it is probable that these islands extend quite to New
Guinea. They differ very much both in height and circuit, and many of
them seemed to be well clothed with herbage and wood: Upon most, if not
all of them, we saw smoke, and therefore there can be no doubt of their
being inhabited: It is also probable, that among them there are at least
as good passages as that we came through, perhaps better, though better
would not need to be desired, if the access to it from the eastward were
less dangerous: That a less dangerous access may be discovered, I think
there is little reason to doubt, and to find it, little more seems to be
necessary than to determine how far the principal, or outer reef, which
bounds the shoals to the eastward, extends towards the north, which I
would not have left to future navigators if I had been less harassed by
danger and fatigue, and had had a ship in better condition for the
purpose.

To this channel, or passage, I have given the name of the ship, and
called it _Endeavour Streights_. Its length from N.E. to S.W. is ten
leagues, and it is about five leagues broad, except at the north-east
entrance, where it is somewhat less than two miles, being contracted by
the islands which lie there. That which I called Possession Island is of
a moderate height and circuit, and this we left between us and the main,
passing between it and two small round islands which lie about two miles
to the N.W. of it. The two small islands, which I called Wallis's
Islands, lie in the middle of the south-west entrance, and these we left
to the southward. Our depth of water in the streight was from four to
nine fathom, with every where good anchorage, except upon the bank,
which lies two leagues to the northward of Wallis's Islands, where at
low water there are but three fathom: For a more particular knowledge of
this streight, and of the situations of the several islands and shoals
on the eastern coast of New Wales, I refer to the chart where they are
delineated with all the accuracy that circumstances would admit; yet,
with respect to the shoals, I cannot pretend that one half of them are
laid down, nor can it be supposed possible that one half of them should
be discovered in the course of a single navigation: Many islands also
must have escaped my pencil, especially between latitude 20 deg. and 22 deg.,
where we saw islands out at sea as far as an island could be
distinguished; it must not therefore be supposed, by future navigators,
that where no shoal or island is laid down in my chart, no shoal or
island will be found in these seas: It is enough that the situation of
those that appear in the chart is faithfully ascertained, and, in
general, I have the greatest reason to hope that it will be found as
free from error as any that has not been corrected by subsequent and
successive observations. The latitudes and longitudes of all, or most of
the principal head-lands and bays, may be confided in, for we seldom
failed of getting an observation once at least every day, by which to
correct the latitude of our reckoning, and observations for settling the
longitude were equally numerous, no opportunity that was offered by the
sun and moon being suffered to escape. It would be injurious to the
memory of Mr Green, not to take this opportunity of attesting that he
was indefatigable both in making observations and calculating upon them;
and that, by his instructions and assistance, many of the petty officers
were enabled both to observe and calculate with great exactness. This
method of finding the longitude at sea may be put into universal
practice, and may always be depended upon within half a degree, which is
sufficient for all nautical purposes. If, therefore, observing and
calculating were considered as necessary qualifications for every sea
officer, the labours of the speculative theorist to solve this problem
might be remitted, without much injury to mankind: Neither will it be so
difficult to acquire this qualification, or put it in practice, as may
at first appear; for, with the assistance of the nautical almanack, and
astronomical ephemeris, the calculations for finding the longitude will
take up little more time than the calculation of an azimuth for finding
the variation of the compass.[87]

[Footnote 87: Reference is made above to Cook's large chart, which of
course could not be given here with advantage corresponding to the
expence of engraving it. This omission is of less moment, as the chart
that accompanies the work is quite sufficient for general readers; and
as any additional one that may be afterwards given, must derive much of
its value from the labours of Cook. Important aids have been afforded
the navigator since the date of this publication; and the two great
problems in nautical astronomy, viz. the deducing the longitude from
lunar distances, and the latitude from two altitudes of the sun, have
been brought within the reach of every one who is in full possession of
elementary arithmetic. See a Collection of Tables for those important,
purposes, by Joseph de Mendoza Rios, published at London, 1806,--an
account of which is given in the Edinburgh Review, vol. viii. p. 451.]


SECTION XXXIII.

_Departure from New South Wales; a particular Description of the
Country, its Products, and People: A Specimen of the Language, and some
Observations upon the Currents and Tides_.[88]


[Footnote 88: All these particulars will be more fully illustrated
hereafter. The present account is certainly imperfect, but it has its
value; and it could not have been omitted without some disparagement to
the original work, and some loss of interest to the reader. It is worth
while to possess all the histories, and more especially the original
ones, of a country like New Holland, which, its extent, position, and
nature, as well as some peculiar contingencies, are likely to render
more and more conspicuous in the records of mankind. There is another
reason for wishing to retain the account now given, and which would not
apply to any equally imperfect one of any other country or people where
civilization had made greater progress. Dr Robertson, referring to this
very description, says, "This perhaps is the country where man has been
discovered in the earliest stage of his progress, and it exhibits a
miserable specimen of his condition and powers in the uncultivated
state. If this country shall be more fully explored by future
navigators, the comparison of the manners of its inhabitants, with those
of the Americans, will prove an instructive article in the history of
the human species,"--Note 33, in the ninth volume of his works. What was
held as a desideratum by this historian, has been accomplished in so far
as additional materials are concerned: How far it has been so in a
philosophical point of view, may be afterwards considered.--E.]

Of this country, its products and its people, many particulars have
already been related in the course of the narrative, being so interwoven
with the events as not to admit of a separation. I shall now give a more
full and circumstantial description of each, in which, if some things
should happen to be repeated, the greater part will be found new. New
Holland, or, as I have now called the eastern coast, New South Wales, is
of a larger extent than any other country in the known world that does
not bear the name of a continent: The length of coast along which we
sailed, reduced to a straight line, is no less than twenty-seven degrees
of latitude, amounting to near 2000 miles, so that its square surface
must be much more than equal to all Europe. To the southward of 33 or
34, the land in general is low and level; farther northward it is hilly,
but in no part can be called mountainous; and the hills and mountains,
taken together, make but a small part of the surface, in comparison with
the vallies and plains. It is, upon the whole, rather barren than
fertile, yet the rising ground is chequered by woods and lawns, and the
plains and vallies are in many places covered with herbage: The soil,
however, is frequently sandy, and many of the lawns, or savannahs, are
rocky and barren, especially to the northward, where, in the best spots,
vegetation was less vigorous than in the southern part of the country;
the trees were not so tall, nor was the herbage so rich. The grass in
general is high, but thin, and the trees, where they are largest, are
seldom less than forty feet asunder; nor is the country inland, as far
as we could examine it, better clothed than the sea coast. The banks of
the bays are covered with mangroves to the distance of a mile within the
beach, under which the soil is a rank mud, that is always overflowed by
a spring tide; farther in the country we sometimes met with a bog, upon
which the grass was very thick and luxuriant, and sometimes with a
valley that was clothed with underwood: The soil in some parts seemed to
be capable of improvement, but the far greater part is such as can admit
of no cultivation. The coast, at least that part of it which lies to the
northward of 25 deg. S., abounds with fine bays and harbours, where vessels
may lie in perfect security from all winds.

If we may judge by the appearance of the country while we were there,
which was in the very height of the dry season, it is well watered. We
found innumerable small brooks and springs, but no great rivers; these
brooks, however, probably become large in the rainy season. Thirsty
Sound was the only place where fresh water was not to be procured for
the ship, and even there, one or two small pools were found in the
woods, though the face of the country was every where intersected by
salt-creeks and mangrove-land.

Of trees there is no great variety. Of those that could be called
timber, there are but two sorts; the largest is the gum-tree, which
grows all over the country, and has been mentioned already: It has
narrow leaves, not much unlike a willow; and the gum, or rather resin,
which it yields, is of a deep red, and resembles the _sanguis draconis_;
possibly it may be the same, for this substance is known to be the
produce of more than one plant. It is mentioned by Dampier, and is
perhaps the same that Tasman found upon Diemen's Land, where he says he
saw "gum of the trees, and gum lac of the ground." The other timber
tree is that which grows somewhat like our pines, and has been
particularly mentioned in the account of Botany Bay. The wood of both
these trees, as I have before remarked, is extremely hard and heavy.
Besides these, here are trees covered with a soft bark that is easily
peeled off, and is the same that in the East Indies is used for the
caulking of ships.

We found here the palm of three different sorts. The first, which grows
in great plenty to the southward, has leaves that are plaited like a
fan: The cabbage of these is small, but exquisitely sweet; and the nuts,
which it bears in great abundance, are very good food for hogs. The
second sort bore a much greater resemblance to the true cabbage-tree of
the West Indies: Its leaves were large and pinnated, like those of the
cocoa-nut; and these also produced a cabbage, which, though not so sweet
as the other, was much larger. The third sort, which, like the second,
was found only in the northern parts, was seldom more than ten feet
high, with small pinnated leaves, resembling those of some kind of fern:
It bore no cabbage, but a plentiful crop of nuts, about the size of a
large chesnut, but rounder. As we found the hulls of these scattered
round the places where the Indians had made their fires, we took for
granted that they were fit to eat; those however who made the experiment
paid dear for their knowledge of the contrary, for they operated both as
an emetic and cathartic with great violence. Still, however, we made no
doubt but that they were eaten by the Indians; and judging that the
constitution of the hogs might be as strong as theirs, though our own
had proved to be so much inferior, we carried them to the stye: The hogs
eat them, indeed, and for some time we thought without suffering any
inconvenience; but in about a week they were so much disordered that two
of them died, and the rest were recovered with great difficulty. It is
probable, however, that the poisonous quality of these nuts may lie in
the juice, like that of the cassada of the West Indies; and that the
pulp, when dried, may be not only wholesome, but nutricious. Besides
these species of the palm, and mangroves, there were several small trees
and shrubs altogether unknown in Europe; particularly one which produced
a very poor kind of fig; another that bore what we called a plum, which
it resembled in colour, but not in shape, being flat on the sides like a
little cheese; and a third that bore a kind of purple apple, which,
after it had been kept a few days, became eatable, and tasted somewhat
like a damascene.

Here is a great variety of plants to enrich the collection of a
botanist, but very few of them are of the esculent kind. A small plant,
with long, narrow, grassy leaves, resembling that kind of bulrush which
in England is called the Cat's-tail, yields a resin of a bright yellow
colour, exactly resembling gambouge, except that it does not stain: It
has a sweet smell, but its properties we had no opportunity to discover,
any more than those of many others with which the natives appear to be
acquainted, as they have distinguished them by names.

I have already mentioned the root and leaves of a plant resembling the
coccos of the West Indies, and a kind of bean; to which may be added, a
sort of parsley and purselain, and two kinds of yams; one shaped like a
radish, and the other round, and covered with stringy fibres: Both sorts
are very small, but sweet; and we never could find the plants that
produced them, though we often saw the places where they had been newly
dug up: It is probable that the drought had destroyed the leaves, and we
could not, like the Indians, discover them by the stalks.

Most of the fruits of this country, such as they are, have been
mentioned already. We found one in the southern part of the country
resembling a cherry, except that the stone was soft; and another not
unlike a pine-apple in appearance, but of a very disagreeable taste,
which is well known in the East Indies, and is called by the Dutch _Pyn
Appel Boomen_.

Of the quadrupeds, I have already mentioned the dog, and particularly
described the kangaroo, and the animal of the opossum kind, resembling
the phalanger of Buffon; to which I can add only one more, resembling a
pole-cat, which the natives call _Quoll_: The back is brown, spotted
with white, and the belly white unmixed. Several of our people said they
had seen wolves; but perhaps, if we had not seen tracks that favoured
the account, we might have thought them little more worthy of credit
than he who reported that he had seen the devil.

Of batts, which hold a middle place between the beasts and the birds, we
saw many kinds, particularly one which, as I have observed already, was
larger than a partridge: We were not fortunate enough to take one either
alive or dead, but it was supposed to be the same as Buffon has
described by the name of _Rouset_ or _Rouget_.

The sea and other water-fowl of this country, are gulls, shags, soland
geese, or gannets, of two sorts, boobies, noddies, curlieus, ducks,
pelicans of an enormous size, and many others. The land-birds, are
crows, parrots, paroquets, cockatoos, and other birds of the same kind,
of exquisite beauty; pigeons, doves, quails, bustards, herons, cranes,
hawks, and eagles. The pigeons flew in numerous flocks, so that,
notwithstanding their extreme shyness, our people frequently killed ten
or twelve of them in a day: These birds are very beautiful, and crested
very differently from any we had seen before.

Among other reptiles, here are serpents of various kinds, some noxious,
and some harmless; scorpions, centipieds, and lizards. The insects are
but few. The principal are the musquito and the ant. Of the ant there
are several sorts; some are as green as a leaf, and live upon trees,
where they build their nests of various sizes, between that of a man's
head and his fist. These nests are of a very curious structure: They are
formed by bending down several of the leaves, each of which is as broad
as a man's hand, and gluing the points of them together, so as to form a
purse; the viscus used for this purpose is an animal juice, which Nature
has enabled them to elaborate. Their method of first bending down the
leaves, we had not an opportunity to observe; but we saw thousands
uniting all their strength to hold them in this position, while other
busy multitudes were employed within, in applying the gluten that was to
prevent their returning back. To satisfy ourselves that the leaves were
bent, and held down by the effort of these diminutive artificers, we
disturbed them in their work, and as soon as they were driven from their
station, the leaves on which they were employed sprung up with a force
much greater than we could have thought them able to conquer by any
combination of their strength. But though we gratified our curiosity at
their expence, the injury did not go unrevenged; for thousands
immediately threw themselves upon us, and gave us intolerable pain with
their stings, especially those who took possession of our necks and our
hair, from whence they were not easily driven: The sting was scarcely
less painful than that of a bee; but, except it was repeated, the pain
did not last more than a minute.

Another sort are quite black, and their operations and manner of life
are not less extraordinary. Their habitations are the inside of the
branches of a tree, which they contrive to excavate by working out the
pith almost to the extremity of the slenderest twig; the tree at the
same time flourishing, as if it had no such inmate. When we first found
the tree, we gathered some of the branches, and were scarcely less
astonished than we should have been to find that we had prophaned a
consecrated grove, where every tree, upon being wounded, gave signs of
life; for we were instantly covered with legions of these animals,
swarming from every broken bough, and inflicting their stings with
incessant violence. They are mentioned by Rumphius in his _Herbarium
Amboinense_, vol. ii. p. 257; but the tree in which he saw their
dwelling is very different from that in which we found them.

A third kind we found nested in the root of a plant, which grows on the
bark of trees in the manner of misletoe, and which they had perforated
for that use. This root is commonly as big as a large turnip, and
sometimes much bigger: When we cut it, we found it intersected by
innumerable winding passages, all filled with these animals, by which,
however, the vegetation of the plant did not appear to have suffered any
injury. We never cut one of these roots that was not inhabited, though
some were not bigger than a hazle nut. The animals themselves are very
small, not more than half as big as the common red ant in England. They
had stings, but scarcely force enough to make them felt: They had,
however, a power of tormenting us in an equal, if not a greater degree;
for the moment we handled the root, they swarmed from innumerable holes,
and running about those parts of the body that were uncovered, produced
a titillation more intolerable than pain, except it is increased to
great violence. Rumphius has also given an account of this bulb and its
inhabitants, vol. vi. p. 120, where he mentions another sort that are
black.

We found a fourth kind, which are perfectly harmless, and almost exactly
resemble the white ants of the East Indies: The architecture of these is
still more curious than that of the others. They have houses of two
sorts; one is suspended on the branches of trees, and the other erected
upon the ground: Those upon the trees are about three or four times as
big as a man's head, and are built of a brittle substance, which seems
to consist of small part of vegetables kneaded together with a glutinous
matter, which their bodies probably supply. Upon breaking this crust,
innumerable cells, swarming with inhabitants, appear in a great variety
of winding directions, all communicating with each other, and with
several apertures that lead to other nests upon the same tree; they have
also one large avenue, of covered way, leading to the ground, and
carried on under it to the other nest or house that is constructed
there. This house is generally at the root of a tree, but not of that
upon which their other dwellings are constructed: It is formed like an
irregularly sided cone, and sometimes is more than six feet high, and
nearly as much in diameter. Some are smaller, and these are generally
flat-sided, and very much resemble in figure the stones which are seen
in many parts of England, and supposed to be the remains of druidical
antiquity. The outside of these is of well-tempered clay, about two
inches thick; and within are the cells, which have no opening outwards,
but communicate only with the subterranean way to the houses on the
tree, and to the tree near which they are constructed, where they ascend
up the root, and so up the trunk and branches, under covered ways of the
same kind as those by which they descended from their other dwellings.
To these structures on the ground they probably retire in the winter, or
rainy seasons, as they are proof against any wet that can fall, which
those in the tree, though generally constructed under some overhanging
branch, from the nature and thinness of their crust or wall, cannot
be.[89]

[Footnote 89: There are upwards of twenty species of ants known, which
differ from one another in several respects, but more especially in the
materials and construction of their habitations. Some employ earth,
others the leaves and bark of trees, and others again prefer straw;
whilst another species, as is mentioned above, occupy the central parts
of trees. Their manners too are very different, though all, in various
degrees, no doubt, manifest very remarkable instinctive wisdom, and, if
the expression be allowable, even acquired knowledge. The reader who is
desirous of minute and most instructive information on the subject of
these sagacious animals, will do well to consult the Edinburgh Review,
vol. xx. page 143, &c. where an account is given of Mr Huber's
observations and experiments respecting them. A single extract from the
Review may prove interesting to the reader who has not the convenience
of referring to the volume. "The accounts of these same animals, in
other climates, sufficiently shew what formidable power they acquire
when the efforts of numbers are combined. Mr Malovat mentions, in his
account of his travels through the forest of Guyana, his arriving at a
savannah, extending in a level plain beyond the visible horizon, and in
which he beheld a structure that appeared to have been raised by human
industry. M. de Prefontaine, who accompanied him in the expedition,
informed him that it was an ant-hill, which they could not approach
without danger of being devoured. They passed some of the paths
frequented by the labourers, which belonged to a very large species of
black ants. The nest they had constructed, which had the form of a
truncated pyramid, appeared to be from fifteen to twenty feet in height,
on a base of thirty or forty feet. He was told that when the new
settlers, in their attempt to clear the country, happened to meet with
any of these fortresses, they were obliged to abandon the spot, unless
they could muster sufficient forces to lay regular siege to the enemy.
This they did by digging a circular trench all round the nest, and
filling it with a large quantity of dried wood, to the whole of which
they fire at the same time, by lighting it in different parts all round
the circumference. While the entrenchments are blazing, the edifice may
be destroyed by firing at it with cannon; and the ants being by this
means dispersed, have no avenue for escape except through the flames, in
which they perish." It might be worthy the attention of philosophers to
enquire, what general purposes in the economy of Nature these
wonder-working animals accomplish. The labours of certain other
creatures, there is every reason to believe, are destined to raise up
habitable islands in various parts of the ocean. May not these small
architects be employed in fitting certain soils for the growth of
vegetable substances? There seems, indeed, to exist in our world a
living spirit, or principle, continually operating in the production of
creatures, and places suitable for them, to compensate the loss of those
which an irrevocable law of the great Fabricator has doomed to
successive destruction, as if He chose to manifest the glory of His
wisdom and power, by creating new existences, rather than by preserving
the old ones.--E.]

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