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Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.Major, Richard Henry

History

Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.

Name: Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.
Author: Major, Richard Henry

Major, Richard Henry

Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Discoveries in geography -- Portuguese; Voyages and travels

The sea fish that we saw here (for here was no river, land or pond of
fresh water to be seen), are chiefly sharks. There are abundance of them
in this particular sound, that I therefore give it the name of Shark’s
Bay, There are also skates, thornbacks, and other fish of the ray kind
(one sort especially like the sea devil), and gar-fish, bonetas, etc. Of
shell fish we got here muscles, periwinkles, limpits, oysters, both of
the pearl kind and also eating oysters, as well the common sort as long
oysters, beside cockles, etc. The shore was lined thick with many other
sorts of very strange and beautiful shells, for variety of colour and
shape, most finely spotted with red, black, or yellow, etc., such as I
have not seen any where but at this place. I brought away a great many
of them; but lost all except a very few, and those not of the best.

There are also some green turtle, weighing about two hundred pounds. Of
these we caught two, which the water ebbing had left behind a ledge of
rock, which they could not creep over. These served all my company two
days, and they were indifferent sweet meat. Of the sharks we caught a
great many, which our men eat very savourily. Among them we caught one
which was eleven foot long. The space between its two eyes was twenty
inches, and eighteen inches from one corner of his mouth to the other.
Its maw was like a leather sack, very thick, and so tough that a sharp
knife could scarce cut it; in which we found the head and bones of a
hippopotamus, the hairy lips of which were still sound and not
putrified; and the jaw was also firm, out of which we pluckt a great
many teeth, two of them eight inches long, and as big as a man’s thumb,
small at one end, and a little crooked; the rest not above half so long.
The maw was full of jelly, which stank extremely: however, I saved for a
while the teeth and the shark’s jaw. The flesh of it was divided among
my men, and they took care that no waste should be made of it.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

History

Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.

Major, Richard Henry

Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Discoveries in geography -- Portuguese; Voyages and travels

The sea fish that we saw here (for here was no river, land or pond of
fresh water to be seen), are chiefly sharks. There are abundance of them
in this particular sound, that I therefore give it the name of Shark’s
Bay, There are also skates, thornbacks, and other fish of the ray kind
(one sort especially like the sea devil), and gar-fish, bonetas, etc. Of
shell fish we got here muscles, periwinkles, limpits, oysters, both of
the pearl kind and also eating oysters, as well the common sort as long
oysters, beside cockles, etc. The shore was lined thick with many other
sorts of very strange and beautiful shells, for variety of colour and
shape, most finely spotted with red, black, or yellow, etc., such as I
have not seen any where but at this place. I brought away a great many
of them; but lost all except a very few, and those not of the best.

There are also some green turtle, weighing about two hundred pounds. Of
these we caught two, which the water ebbing had left behind a ledge of
rock, which they could not creep over. These served all my company two
days, and they were indifferent sweet meat. Of the sharks we caught a
great many, which our men eat very savourily. Among them we caught one
which was eleven foot long. The space between its two eyes was twenty
inches, and eighteen inches from one corner of his mouth to the other.
Its maw was like a leather sack, very thick, and so tough that a sharp
knife could scarce cut it; in which we found the head and bones of a
hippopotamus, the hairy lips of which were still sound and not
putrified; and the jaw was also firm, out of which we pluckt a great
many teeth, two of them eight inches long, and as big as a man’s thumb,
small at one end, and a little crooked; the rest not above half so long.
The maw was full of jelly, which stank extremely: however, I saved for a
while the teeth and the shark’s jaw. The flesh of it was divided among
my men, and they took care that no waste should be made of it.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.

Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.

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