The Results of the Pioneers' Work
About the time that Bligh was dispatched in the _Bounty_ to obtain
bread-fruit plants great developments were instituted in regard to
Australia as the result of Cook's earlier voyages. The revolt of the
American colonies and other circumstances had deprived the British
Government of a region across the seas, to which convicted criminals
might be sent as a cheap and easy way of getting rid of them. It was
accordingly suggested to the British Government by various persons,
including Sir Joseph Banks, that New South Wales (as Cook had
called the eastern part of Australia) would be an excellent region
in which to found a penal settlement, as well as to take steps for
the ultimate founding of a free colony, a region to which British
emigrants might go.
* * * * *
Australia and Tasmania need no longer take it to heart that their
foundation as nations dates from such a cause as the transportation
of convicts, since from a remote period in the history of civilized
peoples this is how many and many a new colony has been founded.
More especially was it so in the case of British America and the
oldest of the British West India Islands. These settlements were
chiefly valued for nearly 200 years by the British Government
because they were places to which persons convicted of felony or
of political crimes could be transported. Moreover, the free
emigrants of good character who colonized Australia and Tasmania
from the first considerably outnumbered the convicts who were
sent to Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria, and West Australia.
Amongst these again the criminal convicts for the most part died
out without leaving issue. It was the political prisoners among the
transported persons who chiefly prospered and founded families. In
short, the colonization of Australia resembled in its processes
the colonization of the United States. The person appointed to
superintend the first settlement of Australia was Captain ARTHUR
PHILLIP, the son of a German teacher of languages in London, who
had entered the British Navy and served with great distinction.
He commanded the first expedition to New South Wales, and left
England in 1787 with a fleet of two men-of-war and six transports,
conveying 550 men and 200 women convicts, and three store ships.
There were also some free emigrants; in all about 1100 persons. The
ships sailed round the Cape of Good Hope and reached Botany Bay on
18 January, 1788. Less than a month afterwards Phillip had already
chosen and named the wonderful harbour of Sydney as the capital
of the future colony, and almost on that very day there arrived
at Botany Bay two French ships under the command of the Comte de
la Pérouse, who had been sent out from France on a scientific
expedition similar to those of Captain Cook. It is possible that but
for the punctual arrival of Governor Phillip the French flag would
have been hoisted over Australia. Though, as it would certainly have
been pulled down again a few years later by the British conquest of
the seas, the possibility is not one to give rise to sensational
writing. But Governor Phillip was a man of energy. He not only
asserted the British claim to all the coasts of eastern and
southern Australia, but sent a party to take possession of Norfolk
Island and its splendid sources of timber supply, and here a number
of convicts were set on shore.[108]
[108] They were afterwards transferred to Tasmania.
* * * * *
The interest of the French Government in the lands of the Pacific
Ocean did not cease with the remarkable voyage of Bougainville.
In 1785 JEAN-FRANÇOIS GALAUP, COUNT OF THE PEROUSE (a native of
Albi in the south-west of France, who had done gallant service
for his country in Canada), took command of an expedition of two
vessels, _La Boussole_ and _L'Astrolabe_, which was to explore more
especially the northern parts of the Pacific. Although France had
recently been expelled from Canada by the success of the British
arms, and had transferred Louisiana to Spain, she still hoped in
some way to regain her position in North America; and in spite of
Cook's inability to find a navigable strait of water across the
vast breadth of the North American continent from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, the opinion still persisted in France that such a sea
route across the continent did exist.[109] De la Pérouse was also
directed to explore the coasts of north-eastern Asia, China, Japan,
New Guinea, and Australia. His explorations of north-east Asia were
very remarkable, but do not come within the scope of this narrative.
He reached the Samoa archipelago in the winter of 1787. Here the
officers and crew of the _Astrolabe_ quarrelled with the natives,
and as a result eleven of the Frenchmen were killed. From Samoa
the French expedition passed by way of Tonga and Norfolk Island to
the coast of New South Wales, and, as already related, arrived
at Botany Bay only a few days after the British expedition under
Governor Phillip. After a brief stay in Botany Bay the Comte de la
Pérouse sailed away northwards, and his expedition was heard of no
more, nor was his actual fate ever completely made known. Apparently
the two ships were wrecked on the coral reefs of Vanikoro, a small
island in the Santa Cruz group to the north of the New Hebrides. The
natives of the Santa Cruz Islands showed themselves very hostile to
strangers and white men in earlier times. It was here that Bishop
Patterson was murdered in 1871, and it is possible that after the
two French ships were driven on to the coral rocks by some storm
their crews perished at the hands of the savages.
[109] We know that it does, but that it is very far north and
perpetually obstructed by ice.
In 1791 another expedition, under the command of BRUNI
D'ENTRECASTEAUX, Governor of Mauritius, was dispatched from
Mauritius with two ships, _La Recherche_ and _L'Espérance_, to
search for de la Pérouse. D'Entrecasteaux obtained no information
about the fate of his predecessor's ships, but his voyage added
considerably to our knowledge of Australasia. He did much to
complete Cook's very imperfect outline of the coast of New
Caledonia, he surveyed a good deal of the Tasmanian coast (though
he failed to find out that this was after all an island), and
he explored the south coast of Australia, which, except for the
preceding voyage of Vancouver, had remained almost entirely unknown
since the hasty exploration of Pieter Nuyts in 1628.
GEORGE VANCOUVER (whose great work as a British pioneer is
associated more with the north-west coast of America) had in 1791
mapped a good deal of the south-west Australian coast and had
pointed out the value as a harbour of King George's Sound. He also
added to our knowledge of New Zealand, and then continued his route
across the Pacific towards what is now the coast of British Columbia.
The troubles which ensued in France, owing to the Revolution and
the uprise of Napoleon, diverted the attention of the French from
oversea discovery for something like eight years. The British took
advantage of this lull to increase their knowledge of the Australian
coast and their claims to this region, which even in 1788 were
defined as extending from Cape York on Torres Straits, round the
east coast of Australia to the southernmost point of Tasmania,
and to comprise all the adjacent islands of the Pacific Ocean. A
remarkable discovery of an outcrop of coal on the Australian coast
near Tasmania by shipwrecked sailors attracted the attention of
GEORGE BASS, the surgeon of a small Government vessel. This bold
man, embarking in a mere whaleboat, passed along the Australian
coast until he found the outcrop of coal. In the following year,
1798, his explorations of these regions convinced him that Tasmania
was an island. Bass was accompanied on his circumnavigation of
Tasmania by Lieutenant MATTHEW FLINDERS. This first circumnavigation
of Tasmania, which lasted for five months, was undertaken in a
little vessel which had been constructed in Australia from the
timber of the Norfolk Island pine, and was only of 25 tons burden.
In this same vessel the gallant Flinders[110]--one of the most
remarkable amongst Australian pioneers--in 1799 explored the coast
of what we now know as Queensland, which was then called the Moreton
Bay district. In 1802 Flinders had become the commander of H.M.S.
_Investigator_, a ship of 334 tons. He christened the continent for
the first time definitely with the name of AUSTRALIA; and having
already added to Cook's exploration of the Queensland coast, he
now turned his attention to that of South Australia, which at the
commencement of the nineteenth century was most imperfectly known,
being only vaguely delineated from the surmised outline put down in
the early part of the seventeenth century by the Dutch explorers,
together with a little work achieved by Captain Vancouver and the
Frenchman D'Entrecasteaux. Amongst other points Flinders discovered
Kangaru Island off the coast of South Australia.[111] The French
seem to have had some conception of the indentation of the South
Australian coast known as Spencer's Gulf, and from this hint arose
the theory put forward at the end of the eighteenth century that New
South Wales was one vast island and New Holland another, separated
by a strait of water uniting Spencer Gulf on the south with the Gulf
of Carpentaria on the north. Flinders's exploration of Spencer's
Gulf definitely proved the continuity of the whole Australian area.
[110] Born at Dorrington, near Boston, in Lincolnshire, in 1774.
[111] An island with an interesting fauna. It possessed a peculiar
species of Emu, which has since become extinct.
With Flinders on board the _Investigator_ was a young midshipman
(his cousin) of the name of JOHN FRANKLIN, long afterwards to become
a governor of Tasmania and to achieve deathless fame as one of the
great Arctic pioneers.
In 1800 there was dispatched from France another scientific
expedition for the exploration of Australia. This was under the
command of Captain NICOLAS BAUDIN, and consisted of two ships,
_Le Géographie_ and _Le Naturaliste_, and contained twenty-three
geographers, zoologists, and draughtsmen; but owing to bad
arrangements in regard to her supplies of food the crews of the
two ships suffered to a horrible extent from scurvy before they
reached Australia, and indeed might have perished but for the
assistance they received from the British settlement at Port Jackson
(Sydney). This French expedition also explored the southern coast
of Australia, but, with the exception of about 160 miles of coast
which it was the first to examine, added little to geographical
knowledge as regards priority of discovery, though for a long time
Captain Louis de Freycinet, the mapmaker who accompanied Baudin,
posed as having been the first to map much of the Tasmanian and
South Australian coasts. It is evident that his commander, Baudin,
or Freycinet himself, had borrowed and copied the charts made by
Flinders, and had amused themselves by giving the names of French
personages to many a bay, promontory, and island already discovered
and named by the British.
In the autumn of 1802 Flinders, having completed his survey of the
whole south coast of Australia from Cape Leuwin to Sydney, started
once more in the _Investigator_ to complete his circumnavigation
of the island continent. He made a careful exploration of the
Great Barrier Reef, and then proceeded to explore the coast of the
Gulf of Carpentaria. After a brief rest at the Island of Timor the
_Investigator_ sailed round the west and south coasts of Australia
and once more reached Port Jackson in 1803. Flinders had thus been
the first commander to circumnavigate Australia and to prove that
it was an undivided area, and that there were no more surprises or
mysteries in its outline.
[Illustration: WHALING IN THE SOUTH SEAS]
Flinders left Port Jackson again in August, 1803, to proceed to
England in H.M.S. _Porpoise_, which was accompanied by a merchant
vessel, the _Cato_. But both these vessels struck a coral reef about
800 miles north from Port Jackson and were completely wrecked.
The crews managed to land in safety on a small sand-bank only 4 feet
at most above high-water mark, and here they were obliged to camp
under a blazing sun with all that they could save in the way of
provisions and important papers. Flinders, getting into a six-oared
boat with a few seamen, actually rowed and sailed 800 miles across
the sea back to Port Jackson, obtained a small vessel there,
returned to the reef, and brought off safely all the officers and
men who had been left there. In this same vessel, the _Cumberland_,
a schooner of only 29 tons, he started for England with ten seamen
and a collection of papers, charts, and geological specimens. In
this little unseaworthy vessel he actually sailed across the stormy
Indian Ocean and reached Mauritius, where he put in for rest and
refreshment.
Mauritius at that time--December, 1803--was still in the possession
of the French. Although Flinders had been granted a French passport
when he left England in the _Investigator_, the Governor of
Mauritius refused to recognize this as he was no longer in that
ship. This Governor-General Decaen--on the contrary, put Flinders in
prison, charging him with being a spy, and seized all his papers and
charts. But although these last were kept from him until the close
of 1807, and one of his logbooks was never returned to him, it is
now shown that they were not made use of in compiling the atlas for
the report of Baudin's expedition. What the French had borrowed from
him was due to his friendly communications when the two expeditions
met on the south-east coast of Australia.
Nevertheless, Flinders was detained more or less as a prisoner in
Mauritius, eating his heart out, for nearly seven years. He reached
England in October, 1810, after Mauritius had been surrendered to
a British fleet. His treatment by the Government of his country on
his return to England staggers one with its heartless ingratitude.
The first circumnavigator of Australia--who had encountered perils
which only a heroic spirit could have overcome, who had nevertheless
taken the utmost care of the health of those serving under him, and
had consequently had little loss of life to report, who had really
by his presence on the Australian coasts at many points on different
occasions assured to his mother country undisputed possession of
that continent by forestalling the expeditions of France, who had
traversed the Indian Ocean from Torres Straits to Mauritius in a
little boat of 29 tons--was given no reward or honour, and was told
that his long imprisonment in that island had barred him from all
promotion. He settled down to work for the Admiralty at Portsmouth,
and he devoted himself with unceasing industry to the compilation
of a book describing his explorations and reproducing his original
charts of the Australian coastline. On the very day on which this
book was published--in July, 1814--Flinders died, only forty years
old. His constitution had been greatly impaired, not so much by the
incidents of his circumnavigation of the Australian coast as by the
long and unhealthy imprisonment in Mauritius; and his health was
undoubtedly further affected by the utter lack of recognition which
his great journey met with on the part of the British Government.
Soon after the fall of Napoleon, in 1815, the French Government
again sent out exploring expeditions to the Pacific, and each one
caused fresh British settlements on the Australian coasts and on
those of New Zealand. This last region had been visited at the
close of the eighteenth century not only by Captain Vancouver
but by Spanish and even Russian ships, while the infant marine of
the United States, chiefly interested in whaling enterprise, were
attracted to New Zealand on account of the abundance of seals and
whales on its coasts or in the adjacent waters of the Pacific. They
found in New Zealand (which in spite of occasional episodes of
savage anger against the white man, and cannibalism, was becoming
more and more used to trade and the settlement of the white man) a
useful base for their operations, and their attention was directed
not merely to the obtaining of oil from whales and seals, but to the
value of the New Zealand flax and timber.
It was, however, the foundation of the British colony of New South
Wales which most powerfully influenced the fate of New Zealand.
Communication rapidly sprang up from the beginning of the nineteenth
century onwards between Sydney and New Zealand. In 1814 there
arrived a party of English missionaries, under the leadership of
the Rev. SAMUEL MARSDEN, which settled in the North Island. In
spite of frequent disappointments and rebuffs these missionaries
actually succeeded in about twenty-five years in bringing the two
islands into something like a condition of peace by composing the
quarrels between native tribes, many of whom became converted to
Christianity. EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD, who had already carried
out several successful colonizing experiments in South Australia,
desired to do the same in New Zealand, but was opposed by the
missionaries and by the British Government. He eventually succeeded
in his purpose, and may almost be called the creator of the New
Zealand Dominion, though he would have failed had it not been for
the co-operation of that great Governor, Sir George Grey. The
British Government hesitated to annex New Zealand, until forced
to do so by learning that a French colonial expedition was on its
way to take possession of these islands for France. New Zealand
was therefore added to the British empire on 11 August, 1840. The
French settlers arrived at Akaroa, in the South Island; but, in
spite of the British flag having been hoisted only two days before,
fifty-seven of them decided to remain, and their descendants at
Akaroa now number six hundred.
Between 1835 and 1853 the French obtained some small satisfaction
for their eighteenth-century explorations by establishing a
protectorate over the Tahiti archipelago and annexing the large
island of New Caledonia, to which possessions they subsequently
added the Marquezas, the Paumotu, and Tubuai archipelagos, and the
Loyalty Islands near New Caledonia. It was really French scientific
expeditions which definitely discovered the Fiji archipelago, so
curiously overlooked by the great British explorers. But when a
French expedition, under DUMONT D'URVILLE, examined these islands in
1827 it found them already under British influence; for from time
to time convicts had escaped from the Australian penal settlement
and had sought refuge in Fiji, where they had become in some cases
the advisers of the native chiefs. A better influence, however, came
among them in 1835, in the shape of the Wesleyan missionaries, who
migrated to the Fiji archipelago from the Tonga or Friendly Islands,
where they had met with complete success.
[Illustration: Map of Australia and New Zealand]
In 1813, three explorers--BLAXLAND, WENTWORTH, and LAWSON--had
succeeded in pushing their way through the difficult country of the
Blue Mountains in New South Wales, which although not excessively
lofty had nevertheless daunted even Bass, the companion of
Flinders, and discoverer of Bass's Straits. As the result of
the crossing of the Blue Mountains a road was made through this
mountainous region, and the pastoral interior of the eastern half of
Australia was forthwith opened up. A maritime surveyor, Lieutenant
JOHN OXLEY, R.N., in 1823, once more continued the exploration of
Queensland. A colony--Victoria--had grown up round the great harbour
of Port Phillip from 1803 onwards. Tasmania had been explored from
1803 onwards, Lieutenant BOWER being the pioneer, and had been
selected as a penal settlement in 1805. Hither had been removed
the convicts first stationed on Norfolk Island. In 1829 the first
settlement in West Australia was founded on the Swan River, where
Perth, the capital of that State, now stands.
In 1828-30 Captain CHARLES STURT made a remarkable overland journey
from New South Wales to what is now known as South Australia,
during which he discovered the Murrumbidgee, Darling, and Murray
Rivers, the most important streams in Australia (Sturt also, in
1845, travelled from the banks of the Darling to the very centre
of the stony, desert heart of Australia). One of the results of
Sturt's first journeys was the foundation of the colony of South
Australia, which began in 1836. In 1840 EDWARD JOHN EYRE (long
afterwards to be Governor of Jamaica under unhappy circumstances,
yet to survive triumphs and troubles alike, and to die in England in
1901) travelled overland the whole way from Spencer Gulf in South
Australia to King George's Sound in West Australia, and discovered
the salt Lake Torrens, and caught a glimpse of the larger Lake
Eyre--believing, indeed, that he had had a vision of a mighty inland
sea, instead of four separate, shallow, brackish lakes. In 1844-5
Dr. F.W.L. LEICHARDT, a German explorer, made a wonderful journey,
3000 miles in length, from near Brisbane, in Queensland, to the Gulf
of Carpentaria, and then across Arnhem land to Port Essington, in
the extreme north of the continent. In 1847 Leichardt attempted to
cross Australia from east to west, but got lost in the bush in the
interior of Queensland, and died, probably of thirst.
After these journeys, and the further explorations of the great JOHN
M'DOUALL STUART (Central Australia, and the crossing from south to
north) in 1858-62; R. O'HARA BURKE and W.J. WILLS (also Central
Australia) in 1860-1--they were the first explorers to traverse
Australia from south to north; A.H. HOWITT, 1861; J. M'KINLAY (South
and Central Australia), 1862; W.C. GOSSE (West Australia), 1873;
Major P. EGERTON WARBURTON (Central to West Australia), 1873; Sir
JOHN FORREST (Central to West Australia) in 1873-4; and ERNEST
GILES (West and South Australia) in 1875; the main features and
characteristics of the Australian continent became known to the
civilized world.
The first value attached to Australia was for its wheat-growing
and cattle-rearing possibilities. Next followed, early in the
nineteenth century, the introduction of merino sheep, and for forty
years or so the main interests of Australia were pastoral, while
the breeding of horses for the use of India ("Walers" they were
called, as an abbreviation of New South Wales) became an important
object of the settlers. The timber of Eucalyptus, Araucaria, and
Casuarina was good enough to export; and the capacity of southern
and south-eastern Australia as a vine-growing country soon became
apparent. But in the middle of the nineteenth century the discovery
on a large scale of gold threw all the other assets of this southern
continent into the shade. Australia proved, moreover, to be rich in
silver, copper, tin, precious stones, and coal, besides gold; and
happily the desert and stony regions, which were quite worthless
for agricultural or pastoral purposes, turned out to be better
endowed with minerals than the fertile land. In 1812 the total white
population in all Australia scarcely exceeded 12,000; in 1912 it
is not far off 4,500,000. A hundred years ago this continent of
2,947,000 square miles was a barely known and derelict land, the
coasts of which were roughly indicated on the map, the interior
being completely unknown. To-day it is the home of a young, white
nation, which may some day rival in power and resources the United
States of North America.
As regards New Guinea, no close attention was given to the geography
of that great island until the surveying expedition of H.M.S.
_Fly_, in 1842-6, commanded by Captain F.P. BLACKWOOD, R.N., and
that of H.M.S. _Rattlesnake_ under Captain OWEN STANLEY, R.N., in
1846-50. This last-named expedition included in its staff as surgeon
the great professor, Thomas Henry Huxley. Huxley named the high
mountains of south-east New Guinea after his commander, who died
before the expedition returned to England. South-east New Guinea
(Papua), the portion nearest to Australia, was annexed by Great
Britain in 1884.
In the settlement which followed the conclusion of the Napoleonic
wars Great Britain decided to restore to Holland the Island of Java,
which she had occupied since 1811. She also gave up all other Dutch
possessions in the Malay Archipelago, and compensated herself by the
establishment of Singapore and the elimination of Dutch rule from
the Malay Peninsula. Thenceforth--from 1818--the kingdom of Holland
extended its sway through the nineteenth century over all parts of
Malaysia, except the Philippine Islands (which belonged to Spain
down to 1898), the Portuguese portion of the Island of Timor, and
the northern parts of the great island of Borneo. It is difficult to
understand why the Dutch left North Borneo alone. That region had
been, however, for centuries, more or less under the dominion of a
once powerful Muhammadan prince, the Sultan of Brunei, and it may
be that he was too strong (possessing, as he did, in the early part
of the nineteenth century, a great fleet of pirate ships) for the
Dutch to tackle. This potentate occasionally entered into relations
with the East India Company, but was not infrequently called to
account for the piracies committed by his subjects or his allies
the "sea-gipsies" (see p. 55) in the narrow seas between Borneo and
Indo-China.
The possibilities of North Borneo attracted the attention in 1830-2
of a notable pioneer of the British Empire, James Brooke, who had
been an officer in the service of the East India Company, but was
taking a journey to China on account of his health. Learning that
the Sultan of Brunei wished for assistance to enable him to put down
piracy and overcome rebellious chiefs, Brooke, having inherited
his father's fortune, fitted out an expedition at his own expense
in England and left the mouth of the Thames in 1838 for North
Borneo in a ship of his own, a sailing yacht of only 140 tons. It
would somewhat daunt the modern adventurer to embark on a little
sailing vessel of that size and voyage round the Cape of Good Hope
and across the stormy southern half of the Indian Ocean to the Sea
of China. Brooke found on his arrival at Brunei that the uncle of
the sultan was engaged in a difficult war with the Dayaks in the
western part of northern Borneo (Sarawak). On condition that he
subdued the rebels and pirates in the western part of his dominions
the Sultan of Brunei agreed to confer on Brooke the chieftainship
of this region; and this delegation of authority developed (not
altogether, however, to the liking of the Sultan of Brunei) into
the creation of the very remarkable State of Sarawak, which ever
since 1841 has been a sovereign state in Malaysia, under the
rule of an English raja. Indeed, although Sarawak was founded in
1841, it has only known, so far, two rulers, firstly, Sir James
Brooke, and secondly, his nephew Sir Charles Johnson Brooke. Ever
since 1888 Sarawak has been under British protection. The British
Government had annexed the Island of Labuan, near Brunei, in 1846,
as a basis from which they might attack the pirates who infested
the Malaysian seas. In 1881 a charter was granted to a company of
British merchants for the foundation of the State of North Borneo,
originating in concessions made by the sultans of Brunei and Sulu.
The historic Sultanate of Brunei itself was brought under British
protection in 1888, and finally under British administration in
1906, so that the whole of the northern third of Borneo is now
within the limits of the British Empire.
Germany first began to take an interest in Australasia about 1850,
when German steamers or sailing vessels from Hamburg and Bremen
found their way to the South Seas. Especially noteworthy was the
house of Godeffroy, founded originally by French Huguenots. Although
this firm eventually failed, it did much to lay the foundations of
German commerce in the Pacific, and took an especial interest in the
Samoa archipelago. As a result of its work the German Government
decided to acquire possessions in this direction where other
European nations were not already established. The Marshall Islands
were annexed in 1885; and the Caroline Islands, with the exception
of the island of Guam (which was ceded by Spain to the United
States), came under the German flag by purchase in 1899. The Dutch
had laid claim to the western half of New Guinea during the middle
of the nineteenth century, when all that region was being explored
with great advantage to science by ALFRED RUSSELL WALLACE; but at
the same period it was almost taken for granted that the eastern
half, and especially the parts of New Guinea nearest to Australia,
would eventually become British.
The Government of Queensland, indeed, annexed all the eastern half
of New Guinea in 1883; but their action was disavowed by the British
Government. Shortly afterwards, however (in 1884), seeing that other
European powers were considering the possibilities of New Guinea
as a suitable region for annexation, the British flag was raised
there, and eventually, by agreement with Germany, Great Britain
added to her empire the south-eastern parts of New Guinea, together
with nearly all the Solomon Islands and the Santa Cruz archipelago.
Germany, in the same year (1884), had annexed north-eastern New
Guinea (Kaiser Wilhelmsland) and the Bismarck Archipelago (New
Britain, New Ireland, the Admiralty Islands, &c.). She also acquired
Bougainville and Buka Islands in the Solomon archipelago. France
attempted about the same time to claim the New Hebrides, but
Australia objected, with the result that the New Hebrides are at
present administered jointly by Britain and France. In 1899 Germany
annexed the two principal islands of Samoa, the smallest of the
three falling to the United States, which, by its successful war
with Spain, had acquired the Philippine archipelago and the island
of Guam. Fiji had been ceded to the British Government in 1874 by
its chiefs and people. In 1899-1904 the Tonga or Friendly Islands
became a British protectorate; and at earlier and later dates many
small Pacific islands and groups not important enough to need
special mention were brought within the British Empire.
The people of Hawaii archipelago, where Cook lost his life, had
been converted early in the nineteenth century to Christianity
by missionaries, British and American. The islands were ruled in
a more or less civilized fashion by a native dynasty of kings,
but at the same time were increasingly settled by white men as
planters and merchants. The white population became too difficult
of government by these half-civilized Polynesians, a revolution was
brought about, for a few years Hawaii was an independent republic
administered by Americans, and finally was annexed by the United
States in 1898. Consequently there remains at the present day no
territory whatever in Australasia which is not under the flag
of some European or American power. In Australia--which became
a homogeneous state by the institution of federal government in
1900--we have the beginnings of a mighty nation; likewise in the
Dominion of New Zealand, which now has a white population of over
1,000,000. New Guinea is still a land mainly inhabited by savages,
and it is probable that owing to its unhealthiness it will remain
more or less a domain of the black man, and the same may be the
case with the Solomon Islands. But elsewhere, though the Polynesian
and Melanesian peoples are far from being exterminated, they are
diminishing in numbers from one cause and another, and those that
survive will probably fuse in blood with the white colonists. Many
of these Pacific islands are earthly paradises, so far as climate
and fertility of soil are concerned. They will doubtless some day
become densely inhabited, and their prosperity will justify the
efforts, the sufferings, and even the crimes and mistakes of the
Pioneers.
_Printed and bound in Great Britain_
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected
without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
been retained as printed.
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
paragraphs, thus the page number of the illustration might not match
the page number in the List of Illustrations.
Page 93: "along the coast of Patagonia (spending five months"--the
transcriber has removed the ( and inserted a comma: "along the coast
of Patagonia, spending five months".