EARLY EXPLORERS
IN AUSTRALIA
From the log books and journalsby Ida Lee
(Mrs Charles Bruce Marriott)
FRGS and Hon FRAHSRead the full text at
This volume includes the Diary
of Allan Cunningham, Botanist from March 1, 1817 to November 19, 1818
"This volume deals with only a portion of the exploration of the Southern Continent and is not intended to be a complete history of Australian discovery. I have endeavoured, however, to relate in addition to the better-known discoveries, many important voyages and surveys which have been less frequently described and in many cases I have left the explorer to tell the story of his adventures in his own words.
"Throughout the various chapters I have tried to trace the first arrival of English ships on the west coast, the trend of maritime exploration on the north and north-west coasts from the days of Dampier down to King, the surveys of Cook and of his successors on the east coast, the rediscovery of Moreton Bay, the finding of Port Phillip, and the circumnavigation and settlement of Tasmania.
"The book also deals with certain inland discoveries from the time of the landing of Governor Phillip in New South Wales until Allan Cunningham had begun his exploration of Queensland. These include the expeditions of Caley, Evans, and all those who struck out westward across the Blue Mountains, and I have dealt with them as constituting a prelude to Cunningham's journal, in order to show in whose footsteps Cunningham followed and to indicate the extent of the colony at the time of his arrival there.
"Allan Cunningham was a Kew botanist who became also famous as an explorer. It would be difficult to say in which field of enterprise he won most renown. The collections of new plants and seeds that he sent and brought home from the most distant shores of Australasia were hardly surpassed by those made by Robert Brown, and with regard to Cunningham's explorations we find that historians today place him in the very front rank of discoverers of the Southern Continent.
"It was not until after he had journeyed as botanist with Oxley's party into the interior of New South Wales in 1817, and had traversed bush and mountain and beheld the wide rivers winding inland that the desire to study anything beyond the flora of the country entered his mind. In his accounts of his journey with Oxley one can trace how he gradually came to listen to "the call of the wild," and by looking at the map of Australia of those early days it is possible to gauge to some extent the fascination that tempted him. He must have seen the great spaces left blank on that map, but whether mountains, plains, lakes, or rivers lay there none could tell, for the spaces were unexplored territory that no traveller had ever crossed. In the map they surround the small colony at Port Jackson, then ruled by Governor Macquarie, and spread over nearly the whole continent.
"Even where fresh discoveries across the Blue Mountains had been made up to 1814 a single line suffices to show how far Europeans had been able to advance into the Unknown.
"The days, then, which followed Cunningham's coming to the colony were glorious days, appealing to men of spirit and courage to blaze a road through country where no civilised man had yet been, and to learn whether it possessed the features of grass and water absolutely necessary if civilisation was to be drawn from the small settlements near the coast into the heart of the continent.
"How nobly Cunningham responded to the call is well known - perhaps by none better than by those who live in the townships along the route that he toiled so earnestly to discover, many of which are even now only just springing up. How, without neglecting the duties connected with his post as King's Botanist, he wrested from the land the knowledge of its mountain-passes, its fine rivers, its rich pastures, it has been my humble endeavour to make known afresh in the present volume, in which his journal, here first printed in full, is the special feature.
"After a careful study of his letters, of his journal, and of his reports (extant in England) I have come to the conclusion that Cunningham himself would have preferred to be best remembered as a botanist. For this reason I decided to give some account of his botanical researches. Botany being an entirely new study to me, in dealing with the names of the plants and flowers of Australia mentioned by Cunningham. I have had the assistance of Mr. N. E. Brown, A.L.S., who has kindly given me most able help and advice.
"Cunningham's manuscripts are to be found in the Libraries of the Botanical Departments of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington and at Kew, and I beg to thank the authorities of both Libraries for their courtesy in permitting me to transcribe them.
"With regard to my own story of Cunningham's explorations I can only add that I had proposed writing of them in a different manner from that which I have adopted, but owing to illness continually hampering my efforts I have been unable to carry out my original intentions. I therefore trust that in due course an abler writer will deal with what I have omitted and do Cunningham's memory the justice it so richly deserves.
"To all who have helped me in various ways to complete this work I offer my sincere and grateful thanks; had it not been for their aid the book could not have been produced in its entirety. To the Librarians of the various English Libraries, of the Sydney Public Library, and of the Mitchell Library, Sydney, I wish to express my gratitude for their valuable assistance. To Mr. Henry Selkirk of the Royal Australian Historical Society I am greatly indebted for his examination of Allan Cunningham's journal and Field Books, preserved in Sydney, and for comparing Cunningham's maps there with those of modern geographers. I also wish to thank Mr. C. H. Bertie, F.R.A.H.S., for permitting me to reproduce the illustrations of Cook's Landing-place and of the brass tablet at Kurnell, previously published by him and I desire to acknowledge Mr. Kashnor's kindness in allowing me to reprint some rare charts in his collection of those made by Dalrymple which I had not met with elsewhere."
The above text is quoted from the PREFACE of the book. |
First Published in 1926 by
Methuen Company Limited
36 Essex Street London
© copyright has lapsed and
this book is now part of the public domain. * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 0301141h.html
Language: English
Date first posted: August 2003
Date most recently updated: August 2003 Project Gutenberg of Australia produces books in electronic form (ebooks) which are freely available to the public. These ebooks may be read on a computer using a simple text editor or viewer. The books are in the 'public domain' and all have been prepared by volunteers. More than 20,000 other ebooks are available from our sister site
Project Gutenberg in the United States. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. Project Gutenberg says that you may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at
http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LEE, IDA LOUISA (1865-1943), historical geographer, was born on 11 February 1865 at Kelso,
near Bathurst, New South Wales, third of eight children of George Lee, grazier, and his wife Emily Louisa, née Kite,
both born at Kelso; she was a granddaughter of William Lee. With her five sisters, she grew up at Leeholme, Kelso,
and rode to school; she became a keen horsewoman.
On a visit to England, Ida Lee married Charles John Bruce Marriott (1861-1936) on 14 October 1891 at the parish church, Felixstowe, Suffolk. Marriott had captained Cambridge,
Blackheath and England at Rugby football. In 1892-1903 he taught and was a housemaster at Highgate School, Hampstead,
where Ida's only child was born in October 1892. She took part in school life and in 1897 published a slender volume,
The Bush Fire and Other Verses. Marriott was secretary of the Rugby Football Union in 1907-24; they divided their time
between London and Suffolk, where he was a small landowner. Her sister Edith married J. J. W. Power and lived in the
Channel Islands.
Mrs Marriott spent her spare time delving in British libraries, notably at the Admiralty,
and discovered log-books, journals and lost charts. In 1906 The Coming of the British to Australia, 1788 to 1829
appeared under her maiden name. Articles in the Tasmanian Mail, Empire Review and Geographical Journal followed.
She next turned her attention to the forgotten navigator (Sir) John Hayes, and from 'letters, family records,
official notices and newspapers of th e period' compiled Commodore Sir John Hayes, his Voyage and Life (1912).
In October 1913 she was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of London and in 1918 the second
honorary fellow of the Royal Australian Historical Society.
Source :
Australian Dictionary of Biography
Online Edition
Other Books by the author include :
The Coming of the British to Australia
Commodore Sir John Hayes, His Voyage and His Life
The Log Books of the Lady Nelson TOP |
