32 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



musket was then fired between them, upon which the younger of the natives, who 

 appeared to be about nineteen or twenty years of age, "brought a bundle of lances on 

 the rock, but recollecting himself in an instant snatched them up again in great haste.' 

 One of them threw a stone at the boat ; this was replied to by a discharge of small 

 shot, which struck him on the legs, and he and his companion took to flight. Cook 

 landed, thinking the unequal contest at an end ; but he had scarcely quitted the boat 

 when the aboriginals returned, armed with hcclamans, or shields, for their defence. They 

 approached towards the white men and threw their spears, but with no result. A musket 

 was again fired at them, to which they replied with another spear, and then they vanished 

 from sight among the high grass and bushes in the vicinity, giving the navigators a 

 favourable impression of their courage and intrepidity. 



Cook and his party walked up to the deserted camp, and with much curiosity examined 

 the household economy of its simple inhabitants. Then, leaving some beads, ribbons and 

 pieces of cloth in exchange for two or three spears, which they appropriated, the white 

 men returned to their boat, observing on their way some light canoes, each made of a 

 single sheet of bark, bent and tied up at both ends. 



In his pinnace Cook sailed round this bay, which he found generally shallow, but 

 the shores proved very interesting and yielded to the botanists such a collection of 

 plants totally new to science, that the place received the name of Botany Bay in com- 

 memoration of the circumstance. In the evening two boats' crews were sent away fishing, 

 and they caught, in four hauls of the seine, some three or four hundred-weight of 

 excellent fish. Many efforts were made to conciliate the natives, who would, however, 

 hold no communication with any of the strangers, except by trying to make them under- 

 stand, though without attacking them, that their presence on shore was offensive. One 

 of the first duties the visitors had to discharge was the burial of a comrade, a 

 seaman named Forby Sutherland, who was thus, as far as we have any historical 

 evidence, the first white man buried on the eastern coast of Australia. 



A day or two after their first landing Cook, Banks and Solander made a short 

 trip inland, and were delighted at the sight of flocks of parrots and paroquets, but 

 more especially was their attention engaged by the beautifully-crested cockatoos, then 

 quite unknown in Europe. As they penetrated these silent forests their eyes were feasted 

 with sights wholly novel, and the exultation of the naturalists at the prospect of the 

 additions they were about to make to the sum of ascertained scientific knowledge may 

 well be imagined. Cook, who was concerned rather with the practical aspect of the 

 country, noted with pleasure some charming meadow-lands and patches of excellent black 

 soil, as well as places where good freestone could be had for house-building. Had chance 

 but led their steps a little to the north they would have seen the unrivalled harbour 

 on which Sydney now stands, but by them it was destined to remain undiscovered, 

 even though in subsequent rambles they must have been within two or three hundred 

 yards of eminences from which its long bright reaches would have been distinctly visible. 

 During his sojourn at Botany Bay, Cook caused the English colours to be hoisted daily, 

 having taken possession of the territory in the name of His Majesty, King George III., 

 an occasion commemorated in the picture painted by T. A. Gilfillan, and presented by him 

 to the Philosophical Institute of Victoria. It can readily be imagined, though Cook's 



