LONELY AUSTRALIA : THE UNIQUE CONTINENT 



485 



was heard of the Great South Land for 

 nearly one hundred years after Dampier 

 made his official report to King William. 



One is minded to compare the experi- 

 ences of these Pacific navigators with 

 those of the discoverers of North Amer- 

 ica. The English and Dutch, like their 

 predecessors, the Spanish, found the 

 North Atlantic seaboard "pleasant land," 

 well watered, clothed with vegetation, 

 with obviously fertile soil, inhabited by a 

 virile race. If Columbus had first landed 

 on the barren shores of Lower California, 

 explored the Gulf of California, and sent 

 scouts into the Sonoran and Gila deserts, 

 the story to be told of a new world would 

 have had a far different wording. 



The uncertainty surrounding the dis- 

 tribution of land in the South Pacific was 

 dissolved by the English scientific expedi- 

 tion of 1768-1770, under Captain Cook. 

 After circumnavigating the islands of 

 New Zealand, Cook set his course west- 

 ward toward Tasmania, but, luckily, was 

 carried by storm winds to the east coast 

 of Australia. Proceeding northward, he 

 discovered the Great Barrier reef, and 

 passed through Torres Strait, proving 

 Australia to be a land-mass of great di- 

 mensions. Cook's expedition revealed for 

 the first time the presence of wide belts 

 of fertile land in Australia, and his land- 

 ing at Botany Bay, Sydney, April 28, 

 1770, was destined to result in acquiring 

 a continent for the British Crown. 



THE SETTLEMENT OF AUSTRALIA RESULTED 

 FROM THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



Curiously enough, the establishment of 

 the first colony on the new-found conti- 

 nent is an episode in the history of the 

 United States. It was proposed by the 

 British Government to utilize the land as 

 a home for the "Loyalists" (Tories) who 

 found life in the American Colonies un- 

 comfortable at the close of the Revolu- 

 tionary War. They were to be supplied 

 with land and money, and Malay slaves 

 or English convicts were to be provided 

 as laborers. 



Fear of the French fleet and the re- 

 moval of many Tories to Canada led to 

 the abandonment of this scheme, but an- 

 other use for Botany Bay was soon dis- 

 covered. Place must be found for unde- 

 sirable citizens, who, before the Revolu- 



tion, had been sent to America at the rate 

 of one thousand a year, and New South 

 Wales met the requirements. The his- 

 tory of Australia begins with the year 

 1788, when ten hundred and thirty-five 

 convicts under military escort landed at 

 Sydney Cove. 



In looking back over the history of the 

 original settlement at Sydney, at first it 

 seems strange that the base of the Blue 

 Mountains, a plateau 3,000 feet in height 

 and a day's ride from the coast, should 

 mark the edge of known land for twenty- 

 five years after colonization. 



There are, however, good reasons for 

 this seeming lack of enterprise. The 

 Blue Mountains, though not lofty, are 

 broad, and constitute a formidable bar- 

 rier. There are no long valleys heading 

 in practicable passes and furnishing ac- 

 cess from the east and the west ; the 

 stream heads are boxes inclosed by walls, 

 and it was only when the narrow divides 

 were chosen for causeways that the pas- 

 sage of the mountain was successfully 

 accomplished (see page 487). 



The famous "zigzags" of the first rail- 

 road, now replaced by a dozen expensive 

 tunnels required for the precipitous de- 

 scent of 2,000 feet, give even the casual 

 tourist an impression of the ruggedness 

 of the plateau ; and when one is led out 

 onto one of a hundred flat-topped pro- 

 montories and gazes down into canyons 

 whose walls may be scaled only by an ex- 

 perienced mountaineer and looks out over 

 a tangle of canyons and cliffs and tables 

 at lower levels, he realizes that "magnifi- 

 cent scenery" for the present generation 

 must have been "disheartening obstacles" 

 to the scout in search of tillable land. 



It is as if the only feasible crossing of 

 the Appalachians which confined the 

 American colonists to the coastal belt 

 were through the most rugged portion of 

 West Virginia rather than along the Mo- 

 hawk or through the Cumberland Gap. 



The drought of 181 3 appears to have 

 been the force which compelled the lead- 

 ers of the now prosperous colony to 

 undertake a systematic search for new 

 lands among and beyond the barriers 

 which held them close to the sea. 



The history of the effort to discover 

 what lay back of these coastal regions in 

 the "land of the never-never" ; to find the 



