A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 13Kerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 13
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
Our people went ashore as usual, and with them Mr Banks and Dr Solander;
who, in search of plants, repaired to the woods. Our men, who were
employed in cutting grass, being the farthest removed from the main body
of the people, a company of fourteen or fifteen Indians advanced towards
them, having sticks in their hands, which, according to the report of
the serjeant of the marines, shone like a musquet. The grass-cutters,
upon seeing them approach, drew together, and repaired to the main body.
The Indians, being encouraged by this appearance of a flight, pursued
them; they stopped however when they were within about a furlong of
them, and after shouting several times went back into the woods. In the
evening they came again in the same manner, stopped at the same
distance, shouted and retired. I followed them myself, alone and
unarmed, for a considerable way along the shore, but I could not prevail
upon them to stop.
This day Mr Green took the sun's meridian altitude a little within the
south entrance of the bay, which gave the latitude 34° S., the variation
of the needle was 11° 3' E.
Early the next morning, the body of Forby Sutherland, one of our seamen,
who died the evening before, was buried near the watering-place; and
from this incident I called the south point of this bay _Sutherland
Point_. This day we resolved to make an excursion into the country. Mr
Banks, Dr Solander, myself, and seven others, properly accoutred for the
expedition, set out, and repaired first to the huts, near the
watering-place, whither some of the natives continued every day to
resort; and though the little presents which we had left there before
had not yet been taken away, we left others of somewhat more value,
consisting of cloth, looking-glasses, combs, and beads, and then went up
into the country. We found the soil to be either swamp or light sand,
and the face of the country finely diversified by wood and lawn. The
trees are tall, straight, and without underwood, standing at such a
distance from each other, that the whole country, at least where the
swamps do not render it incapable of cultivation, might be cultivated
without cutting down one of them: Between the trees the ground is
covered with grass, of which there is great abundance, growing in tufts
about as big as can well be grasped in the hand, which stand very close
to each other. We saw many houses of the inhabitants, and places where
they had slept upon the grass without any shelter; but we saw only one
of the people, who the moment he discovered us ran away. At all these
places we left presents, hoping that at length they might produce
confidence and good-will. We had a transient and imperfect view of a
quadruped about as big as a rabbit: Mr Banks's grey-hound, which was
with us, got sight of it, and would probably have caught it, but the
moment he set off he lamed himself, against a stump which lay concealed
in the long grass. We afterwards saw the dung of an animal which fed
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account