Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia Part 13

In Captain Cook's chart of the coast, another opening had been laid down, a few miles to the northward of Botany Bay, on the authority of a seaman of the name of Jackson, who had seen it from the foretop-mast-head; and Captain Cook, conceiving it to be nothing more than a harbour for boats, which it was not worth his while to examine, called it Port Jackson.

It is no wonder that Captain Cook came to this conclusion; for no opening of any kind can be perceived till you come close in with the land.

This opening Captain Phillip examined, and the result of that examination was the splendid discovery of Port Jackson,--one of the finest harbours, whether for extent or security, in the world.

To this harbour the fleet was immediately removed, and the settlement was ultimately formed at the head of Sydney Cove, one of the numerous and romantic inlets of Port Jackson.

The labour and patience required, and the difficulties which the first settlers must have had to encounter, are incalculable; but their success has been complete.

The forest has been cleared away, the corn-field and the orchard have supplanted the wild gra.s.s and the bush, and towns and villages have arisen as if by magic. You may hear the lowing of herds where, a few years before, you would have trembled at the wild whoop of the savage, and the stillness of that once solitary sh.o.r.e is broken by the sound of wheels and the busy hum of commerce.

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CHAPTER XVII.

PARLEY DESCRIBES THE INHABITANTS, VEGETABLES, AND ANIMALS OF AUSTRALIA.

The natives of this part of Australia are, beyond comparison, the most barbarous on the surface of the globe.

They are hideously ugly, with flat noses, wide nostrils, eyes sunk in the head, and overshadowed with thick eyebrows. The mouth very wide, lips thick and prominent, hair black, but not woolly; the colour of the skin varies from dark bronze to jet black. Their stature is below the middle size, and they are remarkably thin and ill-made.

To add to their natural deformity, they thrust a bone through the cartilage of the nose, and stick with gum to their hair matted moss, the teeth of men, sharks, and kangaroos, the tails of dogs, and jaw-bones of fish.

On particular occasions they ornament themselves with red and white clay, using the former when preparing to fight, and the latter for the more peaceful amus.e.m.e.nt of dancing. The fas.h.i.+on of these ornaments was left to each person's taste, and some, when decorated in their best manner, looked perfectly horrible: nothing could appear more terrible than a black and dismal face, with a large white circle drawn round each eye.

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They scarify the skin in every part with sharp sh.e.l.ls.

The women and female children are generally found to want the first two joints of the little finger of the left hand, which are taken off while they are infants, and the reason they a.s.sign is, that they would be in the way in winding the fish-lines over the hand.

The men all want one of their front teeth, which is knocked out when they arrive at the age of fifteen or sixteen, with many ridiculous ceremonies; but the boys are not allowed to consider themselves as men before they have undergone that operation.

They live chiefly on fish, which they sometimes spear and sometimes net; the women, on the parts of the coast, aiding to catch them with the hook and line.

"The facility," (observes Captain Sturt), "with which they procured fish was really surprising.

"They would slip, feet foremost, into the water, as they walked along the bank of the river, as if they had accidentally done so; but, in reality, to avoid the splash they would have made if they had plunged in head foremost.

"As surely as a native disappeared under the surface of the water, so surely would he re-appear, with a fish writhing upon the point of his short spear.

"The very otter scarcely exceeds them in power over the finny race, and so true is the aim of these savages, even under the water, that all the fish we procured from them were pierced either close behind the lateral fin or in the very centre of the head."

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If a dead whale happens to be cast on the sh.o.r.e, numbers flock to it, from every part of the coast, and they feast sumptuously while any part remains.

Those in the interior are stated to live on grubs, insects, ants and their eggs, kangaroos, when they can catch them, fern roots, various kinds of berries, and honey; caterpillars and worms also form part of their food.

Captain Phillip took every possible pains to reclaim these ignorant savages, and he once nearly lost his life in endeavouring to conciliate a party of them, having ventured amongst them unarmed for that purpose; one of the savages threw a spear which pierced the upper part of his shoulder and came out at his back.

But all the efforts of the governor to effect the permanent civilization of these miserable people proved utterly abortive.

They possess the faculty of mimickry or imitation to a very considerable degree. I was walking with a friend, one beautiful evening, on the banks of the Paramatta, when Bungarry, chief of the Sydney tribe of black natives, was pulling down the river with his two jins, or wives, in a boat which he had received as a present from the governor. My friend accosted him on his coming up with us, and the good-natured chief immediately desired his _jins_ to rest upon their oars, for he was rowed by his wives. During the short conversation that ensued, my friend requested Bungarry to show how governor Macquarrie made a bow.

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Bungarry happened to be dressed in the old uniform of a military officer, and standing up in the stern of his boat, and taking off his c.o.c.ked hat, with the requisite punctilio, he made a low formal bow, with all the dignity and grace of a general officer of the old school.

The rich variety of vegetation on the Illawarra mountain, which is a lofty range running parallel with the coast, contrasts beautifully with the richness of the scenery. The fern tree, shooting up its rough stem, about the thickness of a small boat's mast, to the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and then, all at once shooting out a number of leaves in every direction, each at four or five feet in length, and exactly similar in appearance to the leaf of the common fern; while palms of various botanical species, are ever and anon shooting up their tall slender branchless stems to the height of seventy or a hundred feet, and then forming a large canopy of leaves, each of which bends gracefully outwards and then downwards, like a Prince of Wales' feathers.

Another beautiful species met with in the low grounds of Illawarra, is the fan palm, or cabbage tree, and another equally graceful in its outline, is called by the natives Bangalo.

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The nettle tree, which is also met with in the bushes, is not only seen by the traveller, but occasionally felt, and remembered, for its name is highly descriptive.

Both the animal and vegetable creation in Australia, are wholly different from those in every other part of the world.

To show that the existence of a thing was not believed in, it was compared to a _black swan_, but in New Holland we find black swans, and blue frogs; red lobsters, and blue crabs; flying opossums, and beasts with bills like ducks; fish that hop about on dry land, and quadrupeds that lay eggs.

The quadrupeds. .h.i.therto discovered, with very few exceptions, are all of the kangaroo or opossum tribe; having their hinder legs long, out of all proportion when compared with the length of the fore legs, and a sack under the belly of the female for the reception of the young.

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They have kangaroo rats, and dogs of the jackal kind, all exactly alike; and a little animal of the bear tribe, named the wombat, but the largest quadruped at present discovered is the kangaroo.

These pretty nearly complete the catalogue of four-footed animals yet known on this vast island.

There is, however, an animal which resembles nothing in the creation but itself, and which neither belongs to beast, bird or fish.

This animal is called the Duck-billed Platypus.

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Of all the quadrupeds yet known, this seems the most extraordinary in its conformation; exhibiting the perfect semblance of the beak of a duck on the head of a quadruped.

The head is flattish, and rather small than large; the mouth or snout so exactly resembles that of some broad-billed species of duck, that it might be mistaken for one.

The birds and fish are no less singular than the beasts. There is a singular fish, which when left uncovered by the ebbing of the tide, leaps about like the gra.s.shopper, by means of strong fins.

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The Moenura Superba, with its scalloped tail feathers, is perhaps the most singular and beautiful of that elegant race of bird, known by the name of Birds of Paradise.