A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888

E >> Ernest Favenc >> The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888




The first Englishman to land on New Holland was William Dampier in 1688.
In very bad company, namely, a crew of buccaneers who left Captain Sharpe
and travelled across the Isthmus of Darien, he visited the west coast of
New Holland, where they remained over a month refitting and cleaning
their ship. Dampier does not seem to have been on the best of terms with
his shipmates, for some difference of opinion arising as to the final
destination of their voyage, he "was threatened to be turned ashore on
New Holland for it, which made me desist, intending, by God's blessing,
to make my escape the first place I came near." His notes on this
occasion refer chiefly to the natives seen, whose personal appearance and
habits he considers alike equally disgusting and repulsive.

Towards the end of the year 1696, William de Vlaming, in search of the
RIDDERSCHAP, a missing ship supposed to have been wrecked on the coast of
New Holland, came to the Great South Land. He found and named the Swan
River, this being the first mention ever made of black swans, two
specimens of which were captured and taken to Batavia. At Dirk Hartog's
Road, he found, as before-mentioned, the tin plate left by that captain,
and after a careful examination of the coast so far as the North-west
Cape, left for Batavia.

Dampier now reappears on the scene in charge of the ROEBUCK--a ship sent
out by the English Government in 1699. His account of his voyage is very
minute and circumstantial, but he still retains his aversion to the
unfortunate natives, of whom he always speaks with the greatest scorn.
Some of his statements are slightly doubtful, to say the least of it, as,
for instance, one concerning the capture of a large shark, "in which we
found the head and bones of a hippopotamus, [Note, below] the hairy lips
of which were still sound and not putrified, and the jaw was also firm,
out of which we pluckt a great many teeth, two of them eight inches long
and as big as a man's thumb, small at one end and a little crooked, the
rest not above half so long."

[Note: M. Malte Brun calls him "the learned and faithful Dampier," and,
in corroboration of the hippopotamus story, mentions that Bailly, when
exploring the Swan River, "heard a bellowing much louder than that of an
ox from among the reeds on the river side, which made him suspect that a
large quadruped lay somewhere near him." It is remarkable that in the
several accounts of the early Dutch visits to the northern coast no
mention is made of alligators, although they are so common to all the
inlets and rivers of that region, the name CROCODILS EYLANDEN on one old
chart being the sole exception.]

Dampier disputes the accuracy of the "draught of Tasman's" that he had
with him in many particulars, and constantly advances his theory of the
existence of a strait dividing New Holland into two parts, probably
taking this idea, as before indicated, from the old map of the DAUPHIN.

In 1705, the ships VOSSENBACH, WAYER, and NOVA HOLLANDIA were sent out to
investigate the north coast, under the command of Martin van Delft. The
journals of the voyage have not been found, although a report of the
notable events that happened was laid before the Governor-General of the
East India Council. This was the last voyage of exploration undertaken by
the Dutch, and closes the history of the early discovery of New Holland.
The existence of the Southern Land was definitely established, and it
remained for the English and French nations to determine its size and
formation with accuracy, and fill up the gaps on the coast line.

Sixty-five years passed before Captain Cook sailed through the Endeavour
Strait, finally settling the question of the separation of this continent
from New Guinea, and during that period New Holland, so far as we know,
was unvisited.

The association of Captain Cook with this continent is too well-known to
need more than a passing reference in this introduction. He proved the
insularity of the South Land, and examined the long-neglected east coast.

In. 1777, Mons. de St. Alouarn anchored near Cape Leeuwin, but no details
of his visit have been preserved.

In 1791, Captain George Vancouver touched on the south coast, and gave
the name of King George's Sound to that well-known harbour; thence he
sailed eastward. In the following year Rear-Admiral Bruny
D'Entrecasteaux, in search of the hapless La Perouse, who so narrowly
missed appropriating New Holland for the French, made an elaborate survey
of part of our south coast.

Before the close of the century, Bass and Flinders--fit companions--had
commenced their daring exploits in the little TOM THUMB, and finally,
with the sloop NORFOLK, established the existence of the strait named
after the enterprising young surgeon.

In the year 1799, Flinders went north in the NORFOLK sloop, and followed
up Cook's discoveries in Moreton Bay. In 18oi he was appointed to the
INVESTIGATOR (formerly the XENOPHON), and sailed from Spithead on the
voyage which was to render him one of the leading figures in Australian
history.

Reaching Cape Leeuwin he commenced his survey of the south coast,
discovering and naming the two Gulfs of Spencer and St. Vincent. The
former he at one time thought would lead him through the continent into
the Carpentarian Gulf. He reached Port Jackson in May, the year after he
left England, and active preparations were soon afterwards commenced to
prepare the ship for her long northern cruise.

In July, 1802, the INVESTIGATOR, with the LADY NELSON as tender, left
Sydney Cove; the object of the voyage being to thoroughly survey the
eastern and northern coasts. Flinders rounded Cape York, and after a
close examination of the Gulf of Carpentaria, which, like Spencer's Gulf
in the south, deluded him for a time with the false hope of affording an
inlet into the interior, brought his work to an end at Cape Wessel, in
consequence of the rotten state of his ship. He called at Coepang in
Timor, whence, after obtaining some supplies, he made for Port Jackson by
way of the west coast.

Throughout this cruise it is evident that Flinders was much impressed by
the notion advanced by Dampier, that New Holland (meaning the north-west
portion) was separated from the land to the south by a strait opening
north of Shark's Bay. "Unless," says Dampier, "the high tides and
indraught thereabout should be occasioned by the mouth of some large
river, which hath often low lands on each side of the outlet, and many
islands and shoals lying at its entrance; but I rather thought it a
channel or strait than a river." To quote the words of Flinders:--

"This opinion he supports by a fair induction from facts, and the opening
of twelve miles wide, seen by Vlaming's two vessels, near the same place,
and in which they could find no anchorage, strongly corroborated
Dampier's supposition."

Later information had demonstrated that the supposed strait could not
lead into the great ocean eastward, as the English navigator (Dampier)
had conjectured, but it was thought possible that it might communicate
with the Gulf of Carpentaria, and even probable that a passage existed
from thence to the unknown parts of the south coast beyond the Isles of
St. Francis and St. Peters.

"In the case of penetrating the interior of TERRA AUSTRALIS, either by a
great river, or a strait leading to an inland sea, a superior country,
and perhaps, a different race of people might be found, the knowledge of
which could not fail to be very interesting, and might prove advantageous
to the nation making the discovery."

This was the goal of Flinders' ambition, the vision that haunted him
always--the discovery of a mediterranean sea.

There being no ship in Port Jackson fit to continue the survey work left
uncompleted by the INVESTIGATOR, Flinders determined to return to
England, and obtain a suitable vessel from the Admiralty. He and
twenty-two of his men and officers embarked as passengers in the PORPOISE,
and left Port Jackson in company with the Batavian-bound ships CATO and
BRIDGEWATER.

They sailed on the 10th of August, 1803, and on the night of the 17th,
the PORPOISE and CATO struck on a reef, and became complete wrecks. The
crews escaped to a sand-bank adjoining the reef, and here they were left
to their fate by the third ship, the BRIDGEWATER, the captain of which
vessel sailed away to Batavia, without any attempt being made to save
them.

Discipline and order were, however, maintained on Wreck Reef Bank, as it
was called, and Flinders, who took command after the vessel struck,
proceeded to Sydney in the cutter, to obtain assistance for the remainder
of the crews, who were to employ the time in constructing two decked
boats from the timbers of the PORPOISE. This perilous voyage in an open
boat, Flinders accomplished safely, and returned in six weeks, with two
colonial schooners, the CUMBERLAND and the FRANCIS, and the ship ROLLA,
bound for Canton. The shipwrecked men were taken off the bank, and
Flinders started for England in the CUMBERLAND, a small schooner of but
twenty-nine tons. On his way homeward he was forced to put into the
Mauritius, to refit his little craft, before venturing round the Cape of
Good Hope; and on the pretext that the passport he carried did not afford
safe conduct to the CUMBERLAND, having been made out for the
INVESTIGATOR, he was detained a prisoner in the Isle of France for over
six years.

The conduct of General de Caen in this matter has been severely commented
on, as it was entirely due to his personal pique and jealousy in the
affair that this indignity was put upon Flinders. The generous
hospitality extended by the British settlement to the French navigators
at Port Jackson found no response in this rough specimen of a soldier of
the revolution, who throughout the period of Flinders' detention, treated
him with studied rudeness and unnecessary harshness.

For three months Flinders was kept close prisoner as a spy, and for
twenty months as an ordinary prisoner of war. Still during his captivity
in the Isle of France, his thoughts were constantly busied with projects
for the further exploration of the great southern continent he had lately
left. In addition to the chafing weariness of prolonged detention and
enforced inactivity, he was constantly haunted by the dread that the
French would, after examination of his papers, step in and forestall him
in the matter. In a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, dated March 20th, 1806,
[See fac-simile of original letter (not included in this eBook)] he
mentions this fear, and adding, that disappointment and deferred hope of
release have in no way damped his ardour in the cause of science,
advances for consideration a scheme for exploring the interior of
Australia. Though now, after more than eighty years of discovery have
given us an intimate knowledge of the nature of the difficulties he would
have encountered, we may smile at the somewhat crude notions of the
daring navigator, we cannot refuse to recognise that a good deal of
thoroughness was mixed up with his plan, simple as it reads. An incursion
of five hundred miles north and south, respectively, would without doubt,
if possible, have done much towards an earlier knowledge of the interior.

His dream of sailing up a deep estuary--some great water way--leading to
more fertile lands than those of the coast inhabited by a superior race
of natives, had vanished. As the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria
rounded his course from south to west, and from west to north, so the
picture his fancy had painted faded; and he found himself compelled to
fall back upon the conception of a mode of transit patriarchal in its
simplicity.

He writes:--

"With five or six asses to carry provisions (and they can be obtained
here), expeditions might be made into the interior of Australia from the
head of the Gulph of Carpentaria in 18 deg., and from the head of the
great gulph on the south coast in 32 deg., until the courses should
nearly meet, five hundred miles each way would most probably be
sufficient, since the country does not appear to be mountainous: a view
of my general chart will exemplify this. In case of being again sent to
Australia, I should much wish that this was a part of my instructions."
[Note: Referring to Flinders' scheme for exploring Australia, it may be
amusing to the reader to contrast it with one projected some years later
by M. Malte Brun. In his case, the amount of material the eminent
geographer considered necessary for the expedition is as excessive as
that of Captain Flinders' was simple. His method for exploring the
continent is this: "In order to determine these questions" (namely the
different theories propounded as to the nature of the interior) "it has
been proposed to send an expedition to penetrate the country from
Spencer's Gulf. For such an expedition, men of science and courage ought
to be selected. They ought to be provided with all sorts of implements
and stores, and with different animals, from the powers and instincts of
which they may derive assistance. They should have oxen from Buenos
Ayres, or from the English settlements, mules from Senegal, and
dromedaries from Africa or Arabia. The oxen would traverse the woods and
the thickets; the mules would walk securely among rugged rocks and hilly
countries; the dromedaries would cross the sandy deserts. Thus the
expedition would be prepared for any kind of territory that the interior
might present. Dogs also should be taken to raise game, and to discover
springs of water; and it has even been proposed to take pigs, for the
sake of finding out esculent roots in the soil. When no kangaroos and
game are to be found the party would subsist on the flesh of their own
flocks. They should be provided with a balloon for spying at a distance
any serious obstacle to their progress in particular directions, and for
extending the range of observations which the eye would take of such
level lands as are too wide to allow any heights beyond them to come
within the compass of their view. The journey might be allowed a year or
eighteen months, which would be only at the rate of four or five miles
per day. . . . The author of the present work" ("Universal Geography")
"has discoursed this project in conversation with the enlightened and
indefatigable traveller, M. Péron, who saw no insuperable obstacle to its
probability, except the existence of an immense ocean of sand occupying
the whole of the interior of the continent, which to him appeared
extremely probable."]

But Flinders was never fated to see the interior of Terra Australis,
either from the deck of a ship, or from any point of vantage; he surveyed
its shores, suggested the name it now bears--Australia, and left the work
of discovery, not even to this day quite completed, to other hands. But
though the name of Flinders has not received the world-wide recognition
that has been bestowed upon that of Cook, in Australia it should be
equally honoured. The land that witnessed his long labours and heroic
courage ought not to repay him with forgetfulness.

The crazy state of the INVESTIGATOR having compelled Flinders to
terminate his voyage abruptly, a considerable space of coast line was
still left on the north, and north-west, that had not been minutely
examined. Lieutenant Phillip King, between the years 1818 and 1822,
completed the survey left unfinished by Flinders, and the work of marine
exploration temporarily ceased.

In looking back over the early history of Australia, the apparently
careless manner in which the English became possessed of the whole of the
continent is very noticeable. Although the Dutch had so long been
acquainted with our shores, and the neighbourhood of their possessions in
Java would have afforded them greater facilities for exploration than
were held by any other nation, no attempt at colonisation was ever made
by them. The apparent poverty, both of the country and the natives,
offered the East India Company no inducement to extend their operations.
Still, in a vague kind of way, the Dutch claim to the western portion of
Australia was recognized. In the patent to the first governor at Port
Jackson, the western limit of New South Wales is fixed at 13.5 deg. E.
longitude, a position approximating to the boundary of New Holland as
fixed by the Dutch, whereby the country was divided into New Holland and
Terra Australis. This line of demarcation would bisect the present colony
of South Australia. In the early part of this century, the French
evidently considered that they had a well-founded claim, both to the
discovery and possession of the south coast, west of Nuyts' "Island of
St. Peters." The name of "Terre Napoleon" was given to it, Spencer's Gulf
becoming "Golfe Bonaparte," and the Gulf of St. Vincent "Golfe
Josephine." Malte Brun remarks:--

"The claims of the English have no fixed boundaries; they seem desirous
of confounding the whole of New Holland under the modern name which they
have given to the east coast, which was minutely explored by Captain
Cook. It is worthy of remark that the French geographers had, from a
comparison of the tracks navigated by Abel Tasman, previously concluded
on the existence and direction of this coast itself."

But neither Dutch nor French claims were ever seriously advanced, and the
whole of the continent and adjacent islands were ceded to the English in
much the same happy-go-lucky fashion that we recently let slip a large
portion of New Guinea. One cause of the apathy displayed was without
doubt the forbidding nature of the reports published by all the
navigators. The coast line had been examined, and the various inlets
followed up without any important or navigable river having been brought
to light, and the absence of fresh water streams in such a large
continent naturally led thinking men to the conclusion that the inland
slope was nothing but an arid desert, parched beneath a rainless sky. The
hot winds that had been experienced on the southern coast aided this
belief, and the natives when interviewed professed no knowledge beyond
the limits of their tribal hunting grounds. The little colony clustered
around Rose Hill, and on the shore of Sydney Cove, was shut in by the
gloomy gorges and unscaleable precipices of the Caermarthen Hills, that
stayed all progress to the westward, and the same frowning barrier had
been found to extend north and south.

Men's imaginations were exhausted in picturing the physical appearance of
the mysterious interior. Some thought it a vast level plain, where the
few and sluggish rivers were lost in shallow lakes, to disappear by
evaporation; others again, believed it to be an immense bed of sand where
no rivers formed, and the thirsty sands absorbed the scanty rainfall; and
many imagined an inland sea connected with the ocean by subterranean
outlets: one and all agreed in its inhospitable nature.

There was nothing hopeful nor inspiriting in the outlook to induce men to
attempt to penetrate this silent desert, save the love of adventure, and
the gratification of a laudable curiosity.

The convicts, who in efforts to regain their liberty, from time to time
made desperate attempts to escape, either perished miserably or, daunted
by the sterile nature of the land and the hostility of the natives,
returned to give themselves up, before reaching any distance from the
settlement. The work of exploration was toilsome and difficult, from the
lack of beasts of burden. Each member of the party had a heavy pack to
carry, and when to that was added the cumbrous firearms and ammunition of
those times, a day's journey was no light labour. The weary system of
counting the paces all day must have considerably added to the monotony
of the march. Two thousand and two hundred paces over good ground were
allowed to a mile. When too, nature had barred the way with an apparently
insurmountable range, it is not to be wondered at that the area of
explored country was not very widely extended during the first twenty
years of settlement.

In striking contrast to other portions of the world's surface that have
been slowly explored and examined by the European nations, Australia has
throughout retained a character of its own. From the coastal formation of
most lands, fair indications could be obtained of the character of the
interior. Large rivers gave evidence of a defined system of drainage, the
crests of snow-topped mountain ranges in the distance were proof of
whence these rivers sprang. The native tribes were of higher
intelligence, had a partial knowledge of what lay beyond their immediate
ken, and could show articles of barter and commerce that they had
obtained from more inland residents.

Australia was a silent and sullen blank, and for a century of exploration
nature has resisted, step by step, the encroachments on her stronghold,
making the invaders pay toll with many a gallant life.



PART II.


The Continent of Australia--Its peculiar formation--The coast range and
the highest peaks thereof--The coastal rivers--The inland rivers--
Difference of vegetation on the tableland and on the coast--Exception to
the rule--Valuable timber of the coast districts--Animals common to the
whole continent--Some birds the same--Distinct habits of others--The
Australian native and his unknown origin--Water supply--Upheaval.


It was comparatively at a late period in the world's history when
Australia was opened up as a field for geographical research; but,
notwithstanding that the accumulated knowledge of centuries was thus
brought to bear upon it, the characteristic and unique formation of the
country set at naught all the approved deductions and theories of the
scientific world. A paradox, or, as a clever writer recently put it, "a
surviving fragment of the primitive world," with a nature contradictory
and inconsistent, as compared even with itself, cut off from the rest of
the globe, and left to work out the problem of its existence alone; no
wonder it was only after successive generations had toiled at it, that
Australia was, even in part, understood.

The interior of Australia is, as is well-known, an immense plain, having
an average height of fifteen hundred to two thousand feet, with a decided
tilt, or slope, towards the south-west. Round the foot of this tableland,
is a terrace of lower country, varying greatly in width. The river
systems of the coastal lands, lying between the sea and the foot of the
tableland, were easily understood and traced, that of the interior was
far more difficult.

Starting from Cape York, in the extreme north, and following down the
eastern coast, the edge of the tableland is formed of ranges, often of
considerable height, the gullies and spurs of which are mostly clothed
with scrub and jungle of tropical growth and luxuriance; amongst the
peaks of this range there are Distant Peak, 3,573 feet; Pieter Botte
Mountain, 3,311 feet; Grey Peak, 3,357 feet; and the Bellender Kerr
Hills, 5,433 feet high. Further south, the level is more uniform; the
isolated peak of Mount Elliott--which attains a height Of 4,075
feet--forming the exception, until further south again the elevations
approach to 4,250 feet. An average height of a little over two thousand
feet is then maintained until the border line of Queensland is reached,
and here--in Mount Lindesay--5,500 feet is met with. The New England
Range maintains this altitude in many peaks, including Mount
Seaview--from which point Oxley sighted the ocean-6,000 feet high. Still
to the south, the mountains on the border of the plateau keep up an
average of between three and four thousand feet until, at the south-east
extremity of our continent, the greatest height is attained in Mount
Kosciusko, falling some 700 feet short of the limit of perpetual snow,
its elevation being 7,308 feet.

To the westward, many of the peaks reach altitudes of over 5,000 and
6,000 feet, until the large depression is encountered through which the
great body of interior waters find their way to the sea by means of the
Murray Channel.

West of this gap, the edge of the tableland is broken, and depressed, the
highest crests of the coastal range rarely reaching to 3,000 feet in
height, and along the shore line, facing the Great Australian Bight, it
is almost non-existent.

On reaching the south-west corner of Australia, the elevated edge reforms
in the Russell and Darling Ranges, and trending northward, skirting the
coast, culminates in Mount Bruce, 4,000 feet above sea level. From hence,
the range following the sea line is broken, rugged and precipitous, but
of inconsiderable height, and when the centre of the Gulf of Carpentaria
is reached, it falls away into highlands and slopes, joining the eastern
ranges.

On the great plateau encircled by this range, no elevations of any moment
are to be found; a kind of chain traverses the centre from north to
south, but though in places presenting a bold formation, the highest
altitude attained is in the Macdonnell Ranges--4,000 feet.

From the coastal range, the edge of the tableland, flow the rivers that
run direct to the sea on the seaward face; but in many instances a false
tableland occurs, the streams that drain which unite in forcing their way
through deep gorges to the lowlands of the coast. This false tableland is
conspicuous in the valley of the Upper Burdekin River on the east coast,
and on the head waters of the Fitzroy, The country drained by the top
tributaries of these rivers being only divided from the real tableland by
a gentle ascent, whereas the descent to the coast is steep and abrupt.
Most of the northern rivers, too, take their rise in a plateau that is
almost on a level with the great plain, but cut their way down to the sea
through gorges, instead of being lost in the interior.

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