It is impossible to say who were the first discoverers of Australia,
although there is evidence that the Chinese had some knowledge of the
continent so far back as the 13th century. The Malays, also, would seem
to have been acquainted with the northern coast; while Marco Polo, who
visited the East at the close of the 13th century, makes reference to
the reputed existence of a great southern continent. There is in
existence a map, dedicated to Henry VIII. of England, on which a large
southern land is shown, and the tradition of a Terra Australis appears
to have been current for a long period before it enters into authentic
history.
In 1503 a French navigator named Binot Paulmyer, sieur de Gonneville,
was blown out of his course, and landed on a large island, which was
claimed to be the great southern land of tradition, although Flinders
and other authorities are inclined to think that it must have been
Madagascar. Some French authorities confidently put forward a claim that
Guillaume le Testu, of Provence, sighted the continent in 1531. The
Portuguese also advance claims to be the first discoverers of Australia,
but so far the evidence cannot be said to establish their pretensions.
As early as 1597 the Dutch historian, Wytfliet, describes the Australis
Terra as the most southern of all lands, and proceeds to give some
circumstantial particulars respecting its geographical relation to New
Guinea, venturing the opinion that, were it thoroughly explored, it
would be regarded as a fifth part of the world.
De Torres.
Early in the 17th century Philip III. of Spain sent out an expedition
from Callao, in Peru, for the purpose of searching for a southern
continent. The little fleet comprised three vessels, with the Portuguese
pilot, De Quiros, as navigator, and De Torres as admiral or military
commander. They left Callao on the 21st of December 1605, and in the
following year discovered the island now known as Espiritu Santo, one of
the New Hebrides group, which De Quiros, under the impression that it
was indeed the land of which he was in search, named _La Austrialia del
Espiritu Santo_. Sickness and discontent led to a mutiny on De Quiros'
vessel, and the crew, overpowering their officers during the night,
forced the captain to navigate his ship to Mexico. Thus, abandoned by
his consort, De Torres, compelled to bear up for the Philippines to
refit, discovered and sailed through the strait that bears his name, and
may even have caught a glimpse of the northern coast of the Australian
continent. His discovery was not, however, made known until 1792, when
Dalrymple rescued his name from oblivion, bestowing it upon the passage
which separates New Guinea from Australia. De Quiros returned to Spain
to re-engage in the work of petitioning the king to despatch an
expedition for the purpose of prosecuting the discovery of the Terra
Australis. He was finally successful in his petitions, but died before
accomplishing his work, and was buried in an unknown grave in Panama,
never being privileged to set his foot upon the continent the discovery
of which was the inspiration of his life.
Dutch discoverers.
During the same year in which De Torres sailed through the strait
destined to make him famous, a little Dutch vessel called the "Duyfken,"
or "Dove," set sail from Bantam, in Java, on a voyage of discovery. This
ship entered the Gulf of Carpentaria, and sailed south as far as Cape
Keerweer, or Turn-again. Here some of the crew landed, but, being
attacked by natives, made no attempt to explore the country. In 1616
Dirk Hartog discovered the island bearing his name. In 1622 the
"Leeuwin," or "Lioness," made some discoveries on the south-west coast;
and during the following year the yachts "Pera" and "Arnheim" explored
the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Arnheim Land, a portion of the
Northern Territory, still appears on many maps as a memento of this
voyage. Among other early Dutch discoverers were Edel; Pool, in 1629, in
the Gulf of Carpentaria; Nuyts, in the "Guide Zeepaard," along the
southern coast, which he called, after himself, Nuyts Land; De Witt; and
Pelsaert, in the "Batavia." Pelsaert was wrecked on Houtman's Abrolhos;
his crew mutinied, and he and his party suffered greatly from want of
water. The record of his voyage is interesting from the fact that he was
the first to carry back to Europe an authentic account of the western
coast of Australia, which he described in any but favourable terms. It
is to Dutch navigators in the early portion of the 17th century that we
owe the first really authentic accounts of the western coast and
adjacent islands, and in many instances the names given by these
mariners to prominent physical features are still retained. By 1665 the
Dutch possessed rough charts of almost the whole of the western
littoral, while to the mainland itself they had given the name of New
Holland. Of the Dutch discoverers, Pelsaert was the only one who made
any detailed observations of the character of the country inland, and it
may here be remarked that his journal contains the first notice and
description of the kangaroo that has come down to us.
In 1642 Abel Janszoon Tasman sailed on a voyage of discovery from
Batavia, the headquarters of the governor and council of the Dutch East
Indies, under whose auspices the expedition was undertaken. He was
furnished with a yacht, the "Heemskirk," and a fly-boat, the "Zeehaen"
(or "Sea Hen"), under the command of Captain Jerrit Jansen. He left
Batavia on what has been designated by Dutch historians the "Happy
Voyage," on the 14th of August 1642. After a visit to the Mauritius,
then a Dutch possession, Tasman bore away to the south-east, and on the
24th of November sighted the western coast of the land which he named
Van Diemen's Land, in honour of the governor under whose directions he
was acting. The honour was later transferred to the discoverer himself,
and the island is now known as Tasmania. Tasman doubled the southern
extremity of Van Diemen's Land and explored the east coast for some
distance. The ceremony of hoisting a flag and taking possession of the
country in the name of the government of the Netherlands was actually
performed, but the description of the wildness of the country, and of
the fabulous giants by which Tasman's sailors believed it to be
inhabited, deterred the Dutch from occupying the island, and by the
international principle of "non-user" it passed from their hands.
Resuming his voyage in an easterly direction, Tasman sighted the west
coast of the South Island of New Zealand on the 13th of December of the
same year, and describes the coast-line as consisting of "high
mountainous country."
Dampier.
The first English navigator to sight the Australian continent was
William Dampier, who made a visit to these shores in 1688, as supercargo
of the "Cygnet," a trader whose crew had turned buccaneers. On his
return to England he published an account of his voyage, which resulted
in his being sent out in the "Roebuck" in 1699 to prosecute his
discoveries further. To him we owe the exploration of the coast for
about 900 m.--from Shark's Bay to Dampier's Archipelago, and thence to
Roebuck Bay. He appears to have landed in several places in search of
water. His account of the country was quite as unfavourable as
Pelsaert's. He described it as barren and sterile, and almost devoid of
animals, the only one of any importance somewhat resembling a raccoon--a
strange creature, which advanced by great bounds or leaps instead of
walking, using only its hind legs, and covering 12 or 15 ft. at a time.
The reference is, of course, to the kangaroo, which Pelsaert had also
remarked and quaintly described some sixty years previously.
During the interval elapsing between Dampier's two voyages, an accident
led to the closer examination of the coasts of Western Australia by the
Dutch. In 1684 a vessel had sailed from Holland for the Dutch
possessions in the East Indies, and after rounding the Cape of Good
Hope, she was never again heard of. Some twelve years afterwards the
East India Company fitted out an expedition under the leadership of
Commander William de Vlamingh, with the object of searching for any
traces of the lost vessel on the western shores of New Holland. Towards
the close of the year 1696 this expedition reached the island of
Rottnest, which was thoroughly explored, and early the following year a
landing party discovered and named the Swan river. The vessels then
proceeded northward without finding any traces of the object of their
search, but, at the same time, making fairly accurate charts of the
coast-line.
Cook.
The great voyage of Captain James Cook, in 1769-1770, was primarily
undertaken for the purposes of observing the transit of Venus, but he
was also expressly commissioned to ascertain "whether the unexplored
part of the southern hemisphere be only an immense mass of water, or
contain another continent." H.M.S. "Endeavour," the vessel fitted out
for the voyage, was a small craft of 370 tons, carrying twenty-two guns,
and built originally for a collier, with a view rather to strength than
to speed. Chosen by Cook himself, she was renamed the "Endeavour," in
allusion to the great work which her commander was setting out to
achieve. Mr Charles Green was commissioned to conduct the astronomical
observations, and Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Solander were appointed
botanists to the expedition. After successfully observing the transit
from the island of Tahiti, or Otaheite, as Cook wrote it, the
"Endeavour's" head was turned south, and then north-west, beating about
the Pacific in search of the eastern coast of the great continent whose
western shores had been so long known to the Dutch. On the 6th of
October 1769 the coast of New Zealand was sighted, and two days later
Cook cast anchor in Poverty Bay, so named from the inhospitality and
hostility of the natives.
After voyaging westward for nearly three weeks, Cook, on the 19th of
April 1770, sighted the eastern coast of Australia at a point which he
named after his lieutenant, who discovered it, Point Hicks, and which
modern geographers identify with Cape Everard.
The "Endeavour" then coasted northward, and after passing and naming
Mount Dromedary, the Pigeon House, Point Upright, Cape St George and Red
Point, Botany Bay was discovered on the 28th of April 1770, and as it
appeared to offer a suitable anchorage, the "Endeavour" entered the bay
and dropped anchor. The ship brought-to opposite a group of natives, who
were cooking over a fire. The great navigator and his crew, unacquainted
with the character of the Australian aborigines, were not a little
astonished that these natives took no notice of them or their
proceedings. Even the splash of the anchor in the water, and the noise
of the cable running out through the hawse-hole, in no way disturbed
them at their occupation, or caused them to evince the slightest
curiosity. But as the captain of the "Endeavour" ordered out the pinnace
and prepared to land, the natives threw off their nonchalance; for on
the boat approaching the shore, two men, each armed with a bundle of
spears, presented themselves on a projecting rock and made threatening
signs to the strangers. It is interesting to note that the ingenious
_wommera_, or throw-stick, which is peculiar to Australia, was first
observed on this occasion. As the men were evidently determined to
oppose any attempt at landing, a musket was discharged between them, in
the hope that they would be frightened by the noise, but it produced no
effect beyond causing one of them to drop his bundle of spears, of
which, however, he immediately repossessed himself, and with his comrade
resumed the same menacing attitude. At last one cast a stone towards the
boat, which earned him a charge of small shot in the leg. Nothing
daunted, the two ran back into the bush, and presently returned
furnished with shields made of bark, with which to protect themselves
from the firearms of the crew. Such intrepidity is certainly worthy of
passing notice. Unlike the American Indians, who supposed Columbus and
his crew to be supernatural beings, and their ships in some way endowed
with life, and were thrown into convulsions of terror by the first
discharge of firearms which they witnessed, these Australians were
neither excited to wonder by the ship nor overawed by the superior
number and unknown weapons of the strangers. Cook examined the bay in
the pinnace, and landed several times; but by no endeavour could he
induce the natives to hold any friendly communication with him. The
well-known circumstance of the great variety of new plants here
obtained, from which Botany Bay derives its name, should not be passed
over. Before quitting the bay the ceremony was performed of hoisting the
Union Jack, first on the south shore, and then near the north head,
formal possession of the territory being thus taken for the British
crown. During the sojourn in Botany Bay the crew had to perform the
painful duty of burying a comrade--a seaman named Forby Sutherland, who
was in all probability the first British subject whose body was
committed to Australian soil.
After leaving Botany Bay, Cook sailed northward. He saw and named Port
Jackson, but forbore to enter the finest natural harbour in Australia.
Broken Bay and other inlets, and several headlands, were also seen and
named, but the vessel did not come to an anchor till Moreton Bay was
reached, although the wind prevented Cook from entering this harbour.
Still sailing northward, taking notes as he proceeded for a rough chart
of the coast, and landing at Bustard and Keppel Bays and the Bay of
Inlets, Cook passed over 1300 m. without the occurrence of any event
worthy of being chronicled, till suddenly one night at ten o'clock the
water was found to shoal, without any sign of breakers or land. While
Cook was speculating on the cause of this phenomenon, and was in the act
of ordering out the boats to take soundings, the "Endeavour" struck
heavily, and fell over so much that the guns, spare cables, and other
heavy gear had at once to be thrown overboard to lighten the ship. As
day broke, attempts were made to float the vessel off with the morning
tide; but these were unsuccessful. The water was rising so rapidly in
the hold that with four pumps constantly going the crew could hardly
keep it in check. At length one of the midshipmen suggested the device
of "fothering," which he had seen practised in the West Indies. This
consists of passing a sail, attached to cords, and charged with oakum,
wool, and other materials, under the vessel's keel, in such a manner
that the suction of the leak may draw the canvas into the aperture, and
thus partially stop the vent. This was performed with great success, and
the vessel was floated off with the evening tide. The land was soon
after made near the mouth of a small stream, which Cook called, after
the ship, the Endeavour river. A headland close by he named Cape
Tribulation. The ship was steered into the river, and there careened and
thoroughly repaired. Cook having completed the survey of the east coast,
to which he gave the name of New South Wales, sighted and named Cape
York, the northernmost point of Australia, and took final possession of
his discoveries northward from 38 deg. S. to 10-1/2 deg. S., on a spot
which he named Possession Island, thence returning to England by way of
Torres Straits and the Indian Ocean.
The great navigator's second voyage, undertaken in 1772, with the
"Resolution" and the "Adventure," is of less importance. The vessels
became separated, and both at different times visited New Zealand.
Captain Tobias Furneaux, in the "Adventure," also found his way to Storm
Bay in Tasmania. In 1777, while on his way to search for a north-east
passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Cook again touched at
the coast of Tasmania and New Zealand.
On his first voyage, in 1770, Cook had some grounds for the belief that
Van Diemen's Land, as Tasmania was then called, was a separate island.
The observations of Captain Furneaux, however, did not strengthen this
belief, and when making his final voyage, the great navigator appears to
have definitely concluded that it was part of the mainland of Australia.
This continued to be the opinion of geographers until 1798, when Bass
discovered the strait which bears his name. The next recorded expedition
is a memorable one in the annals of Australian history--the despatch of
a British colony to the shores of Botany Bay. The fleet sailed in May
1787, and arrived off the Australian coast early in the following
January.