Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain Owe - Volume 1 by John MacGillivray (recommended reading txt) 📖

remained in charge of the new settlement. The Britomart remained behind for several years as a tender to this naval station, or military post-for either term is equally applicable, and was afterwards succeeded in her charge by H.M.S. Royalist. In October 1845 the remains of the original party which had been there for seven years (including also a small detachment sent down from China) were relieved by a draft from England of two subalterns, an assistant-surgeon, and fifty-two rank and file of the Royal Marines, Captain Macarthur still remaining as commandant.

PORT ESSINGTON A MILITARY POST.

The Port Essington experiment I am afraid is to be regarded as a complete failure. Yet it could not well have been otherwise. It was never more than a mere military post, and the smallness of the party, almost always further lessened by sickness, was such that, even if judiciously managed, little more could be expected than that they should be employed merely in rendering their own condition more comfortable. And now after the settlement has been established for eleven years, they are not even able to keep themselves in fresh vegetables, much less efficiently to supply any of Her Majesty's vessels which may happen to call there.

ADVANTAGES OF PORT ESSINGTON.

In order to develop the resources of a colony, always provided it possesses any such, surely something more is required than the mere presence of a party of soldiers, but it appears throughout, that Government were opposed to giving encouragement to the permanent settlement at Port Essington, of any of her Majesty's subjects. It is well perhaps that such has been the case, as I can conceive few positions more distressing than that which a settler would soon find himself placed in were he tempted by erroneous and highly coloured reports of the productiveness of the place-and such are not wanting-to come there with the vain hopes of being able to raise tropical productions* for export, even with the assistance of Chinese or Malay labourers. Wool, the staple commodity of Australia, would not grow there, and the country is not adapted for the support of cattle to any great extent.

(*Footnote. I need not here enlarge upon the unfitness of Port Essington for agricultural pursuits-even that point has long ago been given up. The quantity of land which might be made productive is exceedingly small, and although cotton, sugarcane, and other tropical productions thrive well in one of the two gardens, there is no field for their growth upon a remunerative scale.)

Yet the little settlement at Port Essington has not been altogether useless. The knowledge of the existence of such a military post, within a few days' sail of the islands in question, together with the visits of Commander Stanley in the Britomart, had completely prevented a repetition of the outrages formerly committed upon European trading vessels at the various islands of the group extending between Timor and New Guinea. The crews and passengers of various vessels wrecked in Torres Strait had frequently found in Port Essington a place of shelter, after six hundred miles and more of boat navigation, combined with the difficulty of determining the entrance, owing to the lowness of the land thereabouts, which might easily be passed in the night, or even during the day, if distant more than ten or twelve miles. I have myself been a witness to the providential relief and extreme hospitality afforded there to such unfortunates. Still, as a harbour of refuge, it is obvious that Cape York is the most suitable place, situated as it is within a short distance of the spot where disasters by shipwreck in Torres Strait and its approaches have been most frequent.

Port Essington has sometimes been alluded to as being admirably adapted for a depot from which European goods can be introduced among the neighbouring islands of the Indian Archipelago, but on this subject I would perfectly coincide with Mr. Jukes, who states: "Now, the best plan for a vessel wishing to trade with the independent islands, obviously, is to go to them at once; while she has just as good an opportunity to smuggle her goods into the Dutch islands, if that be her object, as the natives would have if they were to come and fetch them from Port Essington."

NATIVES OF THE COBOURG PENINSULA. THEIR ORNAMENTS AND WEAPONS.

The natives of the Cobourg Peninsula are divided into four tribes, named respectively the Bijenelumbo, Limbakarajia, Limbapyu, and Terrutong. The first of these occupies the head of the harbour (including the ground on which the settlement is built) and the country as far back as the isthmus-the second, both sides of the port lower down-the third, the north-west portion of the peninsula-and the last have possession of Croker's Island, and the adjacent coasts of the mainland. From the constant intercourse which takes place between these tribes, their affinity of language, and similarity in physical character, manners, and customs, they may be spoken of as one.

The Aborigines of Port Essington scarcely differ from those of the other parts of Australia-I mean, there is no striking peculiarity. The septum of the nose is invariably perforated, and the right central incisor-rarely the left, is knocked out during childhood. Both sexes are more or less ornamented with large raised cicatrices on the shoulders and across the chest, abdomen, and buttocks, and outside of the thighs. No clothing is at any time worn by these people, and their ornaments are few in number. These last consist chiefly of wristlets of the fibres of a plant-and armlets of the same, wound round with cordage, are in nearly universal use. Necklaces of fragments of reed strung on a thread, or of cordage passing under the arms and crossed over the back, and girdles of finely twisted human hair, are occasionally worn by both sexes and the men sometimes add a tassel of the hair of the possum or flying squirrel, suspended in front. A piece of stick or bone thrust into the perforation in the nose completes the costume. Like the other Australians, the Port Essington blacks are fond of painting themselves with red, yellow, white, and black, in different styles, considered appropriate to dancing, fighting, mourning, etc.

These people construct no huts except during the rainy season, when they put up a rude and temporary structure of bark. Their utensils are few in number, consisting merely of fine baskets of the stems of a rush-like plant, and others of the base of the leaf of the Seaforthia palm, the latter principally used for containing water. Formerly bark canoes were in general use, but they are now completely superseded by others, hollowed out of the trunk of a tree, which they procure ready-made from the Malays, in exchange for tortoise-shell, and in return for assistance in collecting trepang.

The aboriginal weapons are clubs and spears-of the latter the variety is very great, there being at least fourteen distinct kinds. Their clubs are three in number, made of the tough heavy wood called wallaru, a kind of gumtree, the ironbark of New South Wales; one is cylindrical, four feet long, tapering at each extremity; the other two, of similar length, are compressed, with sharp edges-one narrow, the other about four inches in greatest width, and resembling a cricket-bat in shape. These weapons on account of their great weight are used only at close quarters, and are never thrown like the waddy of New South Wales. The spears of the Port Essington natives may be divided into two classes-first, those thrown with the hand alone, and second, those propelled by the additional powerful leverage afforded by the throwing-stick. The hand-spears are made entirely of wood, generally the wallaroo, in one or two pieces, plain at the point or variously toothed and barbed; a small light spear of the latter description is sometimes thrown with a short cylindrical stick ornamented at one end with a large bunch of twisted human hair. The spears of the second class are shafted with reed. The smallest, which is no bigger than an arrow, is propelled by a large flat and supple throwing-stick to a great distance, but not with much precision. Of the larger ones (from eight to twelve feet in length) the two most remarkable are headed with a pointed, sharp-edged, flatly-triangular piece of quartz or fine-grained basalt, procured from the mountains beyond the isthmus. These large reed-shafted spears are thrown with a stiff flat throwing-stick a yard long, and with pretty certain effect within sixty paces.

ARTICLES OF FOOD.

The food of the aborigines consists chiefly of fish and shellfish, to which as subsidiary articles may be added lizards, snakes, possums, various birds, and an occasional kangaroo, turtle, dugong, or porpoise. Several roots (one of which is a true yam) together with various fruits in their seasons-especially a cashew-nut or Anacardium, also the base of the undeveloped central leaves of the cabbage-palm, are much prized. The digging up of roots and collecting of shellfish are duties which devolve upon the females.

Before the arrival of Europeans, in cases of remarkable disease or accident, certain old men known by the name of bilbo (by which cognomen the medical officers of the settlement have also been distinguished) were applied to for advice. I know of no popular remedies, however, with the exception of tight ligatures near a wound, bruise or sore, the object of which is to prevent the malady from passing into the body. In like manner for a headache, a fillet is bound tightly across the forehead. These people, like most other savages, recover in a most surprising manner from wounds and other injuries which would probably prove fatal to a European. The chief complaint to which they are subject is a mild form of ophthalmia, with which I once saw three-fourths of the natives about the settlement affected in one or both eyes; they themselves attributed this affection to the lurgala, or cashew-nut, then in season, the acrid oil in the husk of which had reached their eyes.

BURIAL CEREMONIES.

On the death of any one of the natives, the relatives give utterance to their grief in loud cries, sobs, and shrieks, continued to exhaustion. Some cut their bodies and tear their hair, and the women paint their faces with broad white bands. The body is watched by night, and the appearance of the first falling-star is hailed with loud shouts and waving of fire-brands, to drive off the yumburbar, an evil spirit which is the cause of all deaths and other calamities, and feeds on the entrails of the newly dead. When decomposition has gone on sufficiently far, the bones are carefully removed, painted red, wrapped up in bark, and carried about with the tribe for some time; after which they are finally deposited, either in a hollow tree or a shallow grave, over which a low mound of earth and stones is raised, occasionally ornamented with posts at the corners. I was unable to find out what circumstances determine the mode of burial in each case; neither differences of sex, age, or class are sufficient, as several natives whom I questioned told me which of the two kinds of burial his or her body would receive, without being able to assign any reason. Their reverence for the dead is probably not very great, as even a relative of the deceased will sell the skull or skeleton for a small consideration, on condition of the matter being kept a secret.

SUPERSTITIONS.

Like other Australians they carefully refrain from mentioning the name of anyone who is dead, and like them, believe in the transmigration of souls-after death they become Malays (the first strangers they had come in contact with) in precisely the same way as in New South Wales, etc. "When black fellow die, he jump up white-fellow."

In addition to the yumburbar