Captain Cook's Epic Voyage by Geoffrey Blainey

Author:Geoffrey Blainey [Blainey, Geoffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781760145026
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

A DAY IN ANT LAND

Apart from Orton’s ears, one topic was of riveting interest on board: would they see Aborigines again? If fertile soil was encountered, surely Aborigines would be there. Two days before the Orton affair the shoreline had become more attractive, and at nightfall Banks vowed that it was as fertile ‘as any thing we have seen upon this coast’. After anchoring overnight, the ship briefly passed another stretch of fertile land. Covered with palms, it savoured of the tropics, which the Endeavour was steadily approaching. Smoke from Aboriginal fires became frequent. On a beach two Aborigines were seen, walking along and taking no notice of the ship. Presumably they observed it but thought it prudent to adopt the cunning stance of the hunter, looking straight ahead rather than at the strange marine animal following their coast.

The next morning, in a cold wind, Cook and Banks went ashore in warm cloaks, which they soon threw off. By the middle of the afternoon the sun was ‘almost intolerably hot’. Mangrove trees and their strange roots fringed the lagoon, and pelicans ‘far larger than swans’ stalked about. They were so shy that ‘we could not get within gunshot of them’. In the salty shallows there was delight when edible shellfish and little darting fish came into view. Oysters, mussels, cockles, and even small pearl oysters were seen in the shallow waters.

The bushy mangroves on the water’s edge provided excitement. On closer inspection, they were seen to be concealing nests of ants. As soon as a branch was disturbed by Banks, the ants rallied in large numbers, taking their revenge and ‘biting sharper than any I have felt in Europe’. Green, hairy caterpillars, feeding on the leaves of the mangroves, arranged themselves like soldiers in neat formations. If by chance they were brushed against and disturbed, they immediately stung, reminding Banks of the stinging nettles growing at home. He named these small green creatures the ‘wrathfull militia’. Two centuries later an entomologist – not familiar with Banks’ journal – reported that when these insects contacted the human skin they were capable of instantly causing ‘a painful sensation not unlike that produced by a stinging nettle’. It was almost as if he had been reading Banks’ words.

Meanwhile the Aborigines were nowhere to be seen. The ashes of their recent camp fires were found, and one was still burning, with cockleshells and fishbones – the signs of a recent meal – littering the ground. Judging by the trampling of the soil near the cooking fire, the Aborigines might have been camped there for some days before they fled, presumably after seeing or hearing the seamen stepping ashore.

The place was bleak. Where, apart from a thicket of trees, could the Aborigines find shelter in a cold night-wind? ‘We saw’, regretted Banks, ‘no signs of a house or anything like the ruins of an old one.’ Tupaia, who had been rowed ashore in the hope that his language or his observations might at last prove useful, gave his scoffing verdict of the scene with just two Tahitian words.

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