Terre Napoleon-a History of French Explorations Part 7

The command of the expedition was entrusted to Captain Nicolas Baudin. He was fifty years of age when he received this commission, on the nomination of the Inst.i.tute. In his youth he had been engaged in the French mercantile marine. In later years he had commanded two expeditions, despatched under the Austrian flag, for botanical purposes.

From the last of these he returned in 1797, when, his country being at war with Austria, he presented the complete collection of animals and plants obtained to the French nation.* (* The Moniteur, 25th Prairial (June 13), 1797.) This timely act won him the friends.h.i.+p of Jussieu, and it was largely through his influence that "Citoyen" Baudin was chosen to command the expedition to the Terres Australes.* (* The Moniteur, 23rd Floreal (May 13), 1800.) He had had no training in the Navy, though if, as some suppose, the expedition had a secret aggressive mission, we may reasonably conjecture that it would have been placed under the command of a naval officer with some amount of fighting experience.

That Baudin did not become popular with the staff under his command is apparent from the studious omission of his name from the volumes of Peron and Freycinet, and from their resentful references to "notre chef." They wrote not a single commendatory word about him throughout the book, and they expressed no syllable of regret when he died in the course of the voyage.

Sometimes we may judge of a man's reputation among his contemporaries by an anecdote, even when we doubt its truth; for men do not usually tell stories that disparage the capacity of those whom they respect. An amusing if venomous story about Baudin was told by the author of a narrative of one of the botanical voyages.* (* See the Naval Chronicle volume 14 page 103. The writer referred to was Bory de Saint-Vincent, who wrote the Voyage dans les quatre princ.i.p.ales iles des mers d'Afrique, Paris 1804.) He related, on the alleged authority of an officer, that, being in want of a magnetic needle to replace one belonging to a compa.s.s which had been injured, he applied to the commodore, who had several in a drawer in his cabin. Baudin found one, but as it was somewhat rusty, the officer feared that the magnetic properties of the steel would be impaired. Baudin expressed his regret, and said: "Everything has been furnished by the Government in the most n.i.g.g.ardly fas.h.i.+on; if they had followed my advice we should have been provided with silver needles instead of steel ones!"

Whether or not we believe that a naval commander could be so ignorant of magnetism, it is certain that Baudin did not enforce the laws of health on his s.h.i.+ps. Sufficient has been said in the first chapter to show so much. The Consular Government gave unlimited scope for the proper provisioning of the vessels, and yet we find officers and men in a wretched condition, the water insufficient, and the food supplies in utter decay, before the expedition reached Port Jackson. It must be added, however--even out of its proper place, lest an unduly harsh impression of Baudin's character should be conveyed--that he seems to have made an excellent impression upon the English in Sydney. Governor King treated him as a friend; and the letter of farewell that he wrote on his departure was such a delicate specimen of grace and courtesy, that one would feel that only a gentleman could have written it, were there not too many instances to show that elegant manners and language towards strangers are not incompatible with the rough and inconsiderate treatment of subordinates.

CHAPTER 8. EXODUS OF THE EXPEDITION.

The pa.s.sports from the English Government.

Sailing of the expedition.

French interest in it.

The case of Ah Sam.

Baudin's obstinacy.

Short supplies.

The French s.h.i.+ps on the Western Australian coast.

The Ile Lucas and its name.

Refreshment at Timor.

The English frigate Virginia.

Baudin sails south.

Shortage of water.

The French in Tasmania.

Peron among the aboriginals.

The savage and the boat.

Among native women.

A question of colour.

Separation of the s.h.i.+ps by storm.

Baudin sails through Ba.s.s Strait, and meets Flinders.

Scurvy.

Great storms and intense suffering.

Le Geographe at Port Jackson.

England and France were at war when, in June 1800, application was made to the British Admiralty for pa.s.sports for the French discovery s.h.i.+ps.

Earlier in that year the Government of the Republic sent to London Louis Guillaume Otto, a diplomatist of experience and tried discretion, to arrange for the exchange of prisoners of war; and it was Otto, whose tact and probity won him the esteem of King George's advisers, who conducted the preliminary negotiations which led up to the Treaty of Amiens. Earl Spencer was First Lord of the Admiralty--in Pitt's administration (1783 to 1801)--when the application was made.

The Quarterly Review of August 1810 (volume 4 page 42) fell into a singular error in blaming Addington's administration for the issue of the pa.s.sports. Pitt's ministry did not fall till March 1801; and the censure which the reviewer levelled at the "good-natured minister," Earl St.

Vincent, who was Addington's First Lord of the Admiralty, for entertaining the French application, was therefore undeserved by him. "A few months after the retirement of Mr. Pitt from office and the succession of Mr. Addington, that is to say, in June 1800," are the opening words of the Quarterly article--an extraordinary blunder for a contemporary to make. The Quarterly was, of course, bitterly adverse to Addington's administration, in politics; but though party bias is responsible for strange behaviour, we shall be safe in attributing to lapse of memory this censure of a minister for the act of his predecessor. St. Vincent was in active service, as Admiral in command of the Channel Fleet, when the pa.s.sports were issued.

It cannot be a.s.sumed that Spencer would have complied with such a request from a nation with which his country was at war, had he not been satisfied that the expedition was what it professed to be, one for discovery and scientific research. The pa.s.sports granted guaranteed to Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste protection from hostile attack from British s.h.i.+ps, and bespoke for them a favourable reception in any British port out of Europe where they might have to seek shelter.

The Admiralty was in later years severely blamed for compliance.

Circ.u.mstances that have been narrated in previous pages generated the suspicion that the real purpose of the expedition was "to ascertain the real state of New Holland, to discover what our colonists were doing, and what was left for the French to do, on this great continent in the event of a peace, to find some port in the neighbourhood of our settlements which should be to them what Pondicherry was to Hindustan, to rear the standard of Bonaparte on the first convenient spot."* (* Quarterly Review 4 43. There can be no doubt that this Quarterly article had a great influence in formulating the idea which has been current for nearly a century regarding Napoleon's deep designs. Paterson's History of New South Wales (1811) repeated portions of the article almost verbally, but without quotation marks (see Preface page 5), and many later writers have fed upon its leading themes, without submitting them to examination.) The fact that this sweeping condemnation was made in a powerful organ of opinion bitterly hostile to the administration which it meant to attack, would minimise its importance for us, a century later, were it not that more recent writers have adopted the same a.s.sumption. To accept it, we have not merely to disregard the total absence of evidence, but to believe that Spencer was befooled and that Otto deceived him. The application was, it was urged, "grounded on false pretences," and the pa.s.sports were "fraudulently obtained." It would have been a piece of audacity of quite superb coolness for the French diplomatist to ask for British protection for s.h.i.+ps on ostensible grounds of research, had their secret purpose been exactly opposite to the profession; and the British Minister would have been guilty of grave dereliction of duty had he not a.s.sured himself that Otto's representations were reliable.

The letter of instructions furnished by the Duke of Portland, Secretary of State in Pitt's administration, to Grant, the commander of the Lady Nelson, in February 1800, may be quoted as laying down the principle observed by Great Britain in regard to an enemy's s.h.i.+ps commissioned purely for discovery. "As vessels fitted out for this purpose," wrote the Duke, "have always been respected by the nations of Europe, notwithstanding actual hostilities may at the time have existed between them, and as this country has always manifested the greatest attention to other nations on similar occasions, as you will observe by the letters written in favour of vessels employed in discovery by France and Spain, copies of which you receive enclosed, I have no apprehension whatever of your suffering any hindrance or molestation from the s.h.i.+ps of other nations should you fall in with them...You are also, on pain of His Majesty's utmost displeasure, to refrain on your part from making prizes, or from detaining or molesting the s.h.i.+ps of any other nation, although they may be at war with His Majesty."* (* Historical Records of New South Wales 4 57.)

It was on this enlightened principle that the British Government furnished pa.s.sports to Baudin's s.h.i.+ps; but the Admiralty also took steps to prevent the laurels of important discovery being won by foreign efforts. Flinders returned home in the Reliance in August, vigorous, eager for fresh work, and already, notwithstanding his youth, honourably regarded by naval men as an intrepid and skilful navigator. Lord Spencer, the head of a family eminently distinguished for the great administrators whom it has furnished for the furtherance of British polity, did a far wiser thing than attempting to block French researches, from suspicion, jealousy, or fear of consequences. He entertained the suggestion of Sir Joseph Banks, ordered the fitting out of the Investigator, and placed her under the command of the one man in the Navy who knew what discovery work there was to do, and how to accomplish it speedily. Pitt's consummate judgment in the selection of men for crucial work has often been eulogised, and never too warmly; but one can hardly over-praise the sagacity of Pitt's colleague at the Admiralty, who especially commended Nelson as the officer to checkmate Bonaparte in the Mediterranean in 1798,* (* See Mahan's Life of Nelson (1899 edition) page 275.) and, on the more pacific side of naval activity, commissioned Matthew Flinders to complete the discovery of Australia in 1800.

Baudin's expedition was ready to sail from Havre at the end of September, but was delayed by contrary winds. The delay was considered by a friendly contemporary to be fortunate, in that it enabled the officers and scientific staff to become friendly, so that the most perfect harmony existed amongst them.* (* Moniteur, 29th Vendemiaire, Revolutionary Year 8 (1800).) French readers of the official organ of the Government were also a.s.sured that everybody on the two s.h.i.+ps had merited confidence in the talent of the chiefs; in which case their disappointment with later developments must have been all the more profound. The public and the journals took a lively interest in the enterprise; and the author of one of the world's great stories, Bernardin de Saint Pierre, from his experience of tropical life in the island where Paul and Virginia lived and loved, lectured at the Inst.i.tute on the dietetic regime which ought to be observed by Captain Baudin and his men.* (* Moniteur, 16th Vendemiaire.) But however valuable his advice may have been, it was sadly disregarded.

A livelier function was a banquet given to Baudin at the Hotel de la Rochefoucauld, in Paris, on the 7th Fructidor, by the Societe de l'Afrique Interieure. It was attended by several leading members of the Inst.i.tute, and an account of it was accorded over a column of s.p.a.ce in the Moniteur.* (* 22nd Fructidor.) Baudin was seated between Bougainville and Vaillant, an African traveller. There was music, and song, and a long toast list, with many eloquent speeches. Baudin submitted the toast of Bonaparte, "First Consul of the French Republic and protector of the expedition"; Jussieu proposed the progress of the sciences; the company drank to the "amelioration of the lot of savage races, and may their civilisation result from the visit which the French are about to pay to them"; and the immortal memory of La Perouse was honoured in silence. The last toast appropriately expressed the wish that the whole company might rea.s.semble in the same place on the return of the expedition, "inspired by the purest zeal for the progress of the sciences and of enlightenment." A short poem was also recited, which it is worth while to rescue from the inaccessibility of the Moniteur file:--

"Vous quittez aujourd'hui la France Mais vous emportez tous nos voeux, Et deja vos succes heureux Partout sont applaudis d'avance.

Sur le coeur de tous les mortels Votre gloire a jamais se fonde, Il n'est pas de pays au monde Ou le savoir n'ait des autels."

The poet who thus applauded success in advance, probably lived long enough to realise that it is much easier to make fair verses than a true prediction.

There was another banquet at Havre while the s.h.i.+ps were awaiting a fair wind, when again high hopes were expressed concerning the results to be achieved by the expedition, and where one of the toasts was proposed by a Chinese, Ah Sam, who had been found on board a captured English frigate, and was, by Bonaparte's orders, being taken by Baudin to Mauritius, whence he was to be s.h.i.+pped to his own country. Ah Sam's toast descended from ethereal alt.i.tudes and took a purely personal view of the situation.

He drank "Aux Francais, bons amis d'A Sam."* (* Moniteur, 21st Vendemiaire.) The Chinaman had reason to be grateful, for the First Consul had, by an order over his own signature, directed that he should be placed under Baudin's charge, and conveyed to his own country at the expense of the Government, and that there should be shown to him that consideration which he merited, both because he was a stranger and because of his good conduct while residing within the territories of the Republic.* (* Correspondence of Napoleon, 1861 collection Volume 6, letter dated 7th Vendemiaire, Revolutionary Year 9 (September 29, 1800).) The treatment of Ah Sam was an example of that kindness which Napoleon, ruthless in war, so often displayed towards those who touched his sympathies.* (* Peron mentioned Ah Sam's case (1 11), but Freycinet, in his second edition, cut out the paragraph, in pursuance of his policy of suppressing references to Napoleon; Peron having written that the Chinaman had reason to bless the generosity and goodness of the First Consul. It was not politic in 1824 to talk about Napoleon's generosity and goodness. But how paltry was the spirit thus displayed!)

The expedition sailed from Havre on the morning of October 19, 1800, amidst cordial popular demonstrations from the inhabitants of that bustling seaport, and many wishes that fortune might crown the efforts of the explorers with success. The captain of the English frigate Proselite, which was watching the harbour mouth, scrutinised the pa.s.sports and permitted the s.h.i.+ps to pa.s.s; and, with a fair wind to fill his sails, Baudin put out into the Channel and steered for the open ocean, bound due south.

Peron, in his history of the voyage, severely blamed the obstinacy of "notre chef"--mention of his name being carefully avoided--for the delay occasioned on the run down to the Cape of Good Hope. Captain Baudin, disregarding the advice of his officers, insisted on sailing fairly close to the African coast, instead of making a more westerly course. He argued, according to Peron, that the route which he favoured was nearer, and as a matter of mileage he was right. But winds and currents should have been considered rather than bare distance; and the simple result of bad seamans.h.i.+p was that Baudin's vessels occupied one hundred and forty-five days on the voyage from Havre to Mauritius, where they stayed to refit, whilst Flinders brought out the Investigator from Spithead the whole way to Cape Leeuwin, where he first made the Australian coast, in one hundred and forty-two days. The French vessels lay at Mauritius for the leisurely s.p.a.ce of forty days, and did not reach Australia till May 27, two hundred and twenty days after their departure from France.

Even then, had reasonable diligence been exercised in the pursuit of the exploratory work for which his s.h.i.+ps had been commissioned, Baudin would have had the honour of discovering the unknown southern coast; for Flinders was not allowed to leave England till July 17, 1801, fifty-one days after the French actually arrived on the sh.o.r.es of Australia. The prize of discovery slipped from Baudin's reach in consequence of his "dawdling" methods, which brought about those "consequences facheuses et irreparables" deplored by the naturalist.

Soon after the expedition left Mauritius, the officers and crew were surprised to learn that the supplies of bread were short "and that for the future s.h.i.+ps' biscuit and salt meat would const.i.tute the princ.i.p.al part of the diet. The wine brought from France had also been nearly consumed. Instead of the latter, a cheap, unwholesome drink, tafia, bought at the island, was to be served out. This was amazing and depressing news, considering the lavishness with which the Government had fitted out the s.h.i.+ps, and that nearly six weeks had been spent at a French colonial possession. By this time, too, as is clear from Peron's narrative, very little affection for the commander remained. The delays already permitted had brought the expedition in face of the prospect of exploring the southern coasts of New Holland in the winter season. Baudin considered it unwise to undertake the work in Tasmanian seas, according to the programme prepared for him, during months when severe storms would probably be encountered; and he consequently determined not to sail farther south on making Cape Leeuwin, but to explore the western coasts of the continent, reserving the work which the Inst.i.tute had put first to be done in the following spring. Peron blamed him for this decision, inasmuch as the course prescribed in the instructions was the result of careful thought and extensive research. But though the procrastination which had let slip the months best suited for exploration in southern waters was caused by Baudin's own lack of energy and knowledge, his resolve not to entrust his s.h.i.+ps on an unknown coast, where he knew of no secure harbours, in the months of tempest and cold, was prudent.

On making the Leeuwin, therefore, Baudin steered north. Geography Bay and Cape Naturaliste, upon current maps, mark the commencement of his work on the sh.o.r.es of Western Australia. From Sharks Bay the vessels pursued the course of the first Englishman to explore any portion of the Australian coast, the resolute, observant, tough old salt, William Dampier. The biographical dictionary was here for the first time brought forth, and the names within it were scattered liberally over the lands traversed.

Some of them have adhered, though Baudin's voyage along these sh.o.r.es was by no means one of discovery, and there is clear evidence that names were applied to parts which his s.h.i.+ps did not investigate with any approach to care. The Golfe Joseph Bonaparte of the large French chart, if traced with some degree of particularity, would have led to several highly important discoveries. But it was not carefully investigated at all, and thus Baudin totally missed Bathurst Island and Melville Island, which together stretch for over one hundred miles across the entrance to Van Diemen's Gulf. Instead of definiteness of outline, the French charts presented the world with a bristling array of names affixed to contours which were cloudy and ill-defined, incomplete and inaccurate.

The most serious omission of all was the superb natural harbour of Port Darwin, the finest anchorage in northern Australia. The French missed it altogether. Yet here also they peppered their chart of the neighbouring coasts with the names of their notable countrymen, as though they had explored the environs meticulously. Baudin certainly lost a fine opportunity of doing good original work in north-western Australia; and had his real object been to find a suitable site for French settlement, his research would have been amply rewarded had he found the port which now bears the n.o.ble name of the greatest modern man of science. There is, however, one French name which should not escape mention, since it serves to remind us that Peron was writing his book at the time when, amidst the smoke and flame and thunder of Trafalgar, two fleets locked in fierce conflict were deciding momentous issues. Off the very broken coast of what is now the Kimberley division of Western Australia, the French styled a small cl.u.s.ter of rocky islets the Isles d'Arcole; and one of these was named Ile Lucas, "in honour of the captain of the vessel which, in the combat of the Redoutable against the Victory, has lately attained so much honour."* (* Peron, Voyage de Decouvertes 1 136.) The English reader will scarcely need to be reminded that it was by a shot from the mizzen top of the Redoutable in that immortal fight that Nelson received his death wound; and thus, by giving his name to a desolate rock, was it sought to honour the captain of the s.h.i.+p that had accounted for the death of a nation's hero. The French charting was so inferior that it is scarcely possible to identify the Ile Lucas, which is not marked at all on the large Carte Generale, probably because that was finished before Trafalgar was fought; though the pa.s.sage in Peron's book is somewhat valuable as showing that the pepper-box sprinkling of names along coasts explored with less sufficiency than pretentiousness was not entirely Baudin's work. The commander of the expedition died before Trafalgar was fought, so that, as on other grounds we have reason to infer, he was less responsible for the nomenclature than Freycinet made it appear when that feature of the work became somewhat discreditable.

Scurvy broke out on Le Geographe while the voyage along the western and north-western coasts was in progress. Water, too, was becoming scarce, and there seemed to be little opportunity of replenis.h.i.+ng the supply on these barren sh.o.r.es. The s.h.i.+p had likewise become separated from her consort, Le Naturaliste, "owing to the false calculations of the chief charged with directing their common movements," as averred by Freycinet.

Baudin decided to sail to the Dutch possession at Timor, where he might be able to re-victual, take in fresh water, and enable his crew to recover from their disease, which was fast reducing them to helplessness.

He therefore discontinued the further exploration of the north-west coast, and, on August 18, entered Kupang.

There Le Naturaliste also appeared rather more than a month later, and the two s.h.i.+ps remained in the Dutch port till November 13, Baudin's vessel having thus been at anchor fifty-six days. There was no hurrying.

In the month of October an English frigate, the Virginia, suddenly made her appearance in the offing, with her decks cleared for action. Her captain had heard of two French vessels being at Kupang, and, supposing them to be lawful prize of war, he had clapped on all sail and descended on the quiet little port with the joyful antic.i.p.ation of finding brisk business to do. But when he was informed that the two were exploring s.h.i.+ps, and had examined their pa.s.sports, the English commander gallantly expressed "his especial esteem and consideration for the object of our voyage"; and, hearing that Captain Baudin was ill, even offered a present of excellent wine. It was a s.h.i.+ning, graceful little incident, pleasant to read about in a story in which there is a surfeit of discontent, disease, and bad feeling. The frigate, having satisfied herself that there was no fighting to enjoy, made off without firing a shot.

After the long sojourn at Timor, it might have been expected that when the expedition sailed for the south of Tasmania, the s.h.i.+ps would be in a clean and wholesome condition, the crews and staff in good health, and the supplies of food and water abundant. But distressing fortunes followed in Baudin's wake at every stage of the voyage. Leaving Kupang on November 13, the vessels were only six days' sail from that port when insufficiency of water led to revolting practices, described by Peron.

"We were so oppressed by the heat," he says, "and our ration of water was so meagre, that unhappy sailors were seen drinking their urine. All the representations of the s.h.i.+p's doctor with a view of increasing for the time being the quant.i.ty of water supplied, and diminis.h.i.+ng the ration when cooler lat.i.tudes were reached, were useless."* (* Peron, 1824 edition 2 7.) It is not wonderful that scurvy broke out again with increased virulence.

It is more pleasant to turn to the somewhat prolonged stay made in southern Tasmania. At this time, it should be recollected, there was no European settlement on the beautiful and fertile island which then bore the name of the old Dutch governor of Java, Anthony Van Diemen. Indeed, it was only so recently as 1798 that Flinders and Ba.s.s, in the Norfolk, had demonstrated that it really was an island, by sailing round it. On previous charts, princ.i.p.ally founded on that of Cook--the map attached to the history of Bougainville's voyage (1771) is particularly interesting--it had been represented as a long projection from the mainland, shaped like a pig's snout. Not only Abel Tasman, the discoverer (1642), but the French explorers, Marion-Dufresne (1772) and Dentrecasteaux (1791), and the English navigators, Cook, Furneaux, c.o.x, and Bligh, had visited it.* (* See Backhouse Walker, Early Tasmania, published by the Royal Society of Tasmania, Hobart 1902.) But as yet the European had merely landed for fresh water, or had explored the south coast very slightly as a matter of curiosity, and the aboriginal race was still in unchallenged possession. Had Baudin been furnished with instructions to look for a place for French settlement, very little diligence and perspicacity would have enabled him to fix upon a spot suitable to the point of perfection before the English at Port Jackson knew of his whereabouts in these seas at all. He might have planted the tricolour under the shadow of Mount Wellington, on the site of Hobart, and furnished it from his s.h.i.+ps with the requisites for endurance till he could speed to the Isle of France and bring out the means of establis.h.i.+ng a stable settlement. But though the geographical work done in this region was important and of good quality--Freycinet being on the spot--it does not appear that any investigations were made beyond those natural to a scientific expedition, and certainly no steps were taken by Baudin to a.s.sert possessive rights. Yet there was no part of Australia as to which the French could have made out stronger claims on moral grounds; for though the voyage of the first French navigator who landed in Tasmania was one hundred and thirty years later than Abel Tasman's discovery, still it was a solid fact that both Marion-Dufresne and Dentrecasteaux had contributed more than any other Europeans had done to a knowledge of what Tasmania was, until Flinders and Ba.s.s in their dancing little 25 ton sloop put an end to mystery and misconception, and placed the charming island fairly for what it was on the map of the world.

Baudin's s.h.i.+ps rounded South-East Cape on January 13 (1802), and sailed up Dentrecasteaux Channel into Port Cygnet. Peron found plenty to interest him in the fauna of this strange land, and above all in the aboriginals with whom he was able to come in contact. His chapters on the three months' stay in southern and eastern Tasmania are full of pleasant pa.s.sages, for the naturalist had a pretty talent for descriptive writing, was pleased with the novel things he saw, and communicated his pleasure to his pages. Though he lacked the large grasp, the fertile suggestiveness, of great scientific travellers like Humboldt, Darwin, and Alfred Russel Wallace, he was curious, well informed, industrious, and sympathetic; and as he was the first trained anthropologist to enter into personal relations with the Tasmanian blacks--a race now become extinct under the shrivelling touch of European civilisation--his writings concerning them have great value, quite apart from the pleasure with which they may be read. A couple of pages describing Peron's first meeting with the aboriginals when out looking for water, and the amazement of the savages on encountering the whites--an incident given with delightful humour, and at the same time showing close and careful observation--will be likely to be welcomed by the reader.

"In pursuing our route we came to a little cove, at the bottom of which appeared a pretty valley, which seemed to offer the prospect of finding sweet water. That consideration decided M. H. Freycinet to land there. We had scarcely put foot upon the sh.o.r.e, when two natives made their appearance upon the peak of a neighbouring hill. In response to the signs of friends.h.i.+p that we made to them, one of them leapt, rather than climbed, from the height of the rock, and was in the midst of us in the twinkling of an eye. He was a young man of from twenty-two to twenty-four years of age, of generally strong build, having no other physical fault than the extreme slenderness of legs and arms that is characteristic of his race. His face had nothing ferocious or forbidding about its expression; his eyes were lively and intelligent, and his manner expressed at once good feeling and surprise. M. Freycinet having embraced him, I did the same; but from the air of indifference with which he received this evidence of our interest, it was easy to perceive that this kind of reception had no signification for him. What appeared to affect him more, was the whiteness of our skin. Wis.h.i.+ng to a.s.sure himself, doubtless, if our bodies were the same colour all over, he lifted up successively our waistcoats and our s.h.i.+rts; and his astonishment manifested itself in loud cries of surprise, and above all in an extremely rapid stamping of the feet.

"But our boat appeared to interest him even more than our persons; and after he had examined us for some minutes, he sprang into it. There, without troubling himself at all about the sailors whom he found in it, he appeared as if absorbed in his examination of the novelty. The thickness of the planks, the curves, the rudder, the oars, the masts, the sails--all these he observed with that silent and profound attention which are the unquestionable signs of a deep interest and a reflective admiration. just then, one of the boatmen, wis.h.i.+ng doubtless to increase his surprise, handed him a gla.s.s bottle filled with the arack which formed part of the provisions of our search party. The s.h.i.+ning of the gla.s.s at first evoked a cry of astonishment from the savage, who took the bottle and examined it for some moments. But soon, his curiosity returning to the boat, he threw the bottle into the sea, without appearing to have any other intention than that of getting rid of an object to which he was indifferent; and at once resumed his examination.

Neither the cries of the sailor, who was concerned with the loss of the bottle of arack, nor the promptness of one of his comrades to jump into the water to recover it, appeared to concern him. He made various attempts to push the boat free, but the mooring-rope which held it fast making his efforts futile, he was constrained to abandon them, and returned to us, after having given us the most striking example we had ever had of attention and reflection among savage peoples."

Presently the companion of the young aboriginal came down the hill and joined the group. He was an older man, about fifty years of age, grey-bearded and grey-headed, with a frank and open countenance. He also was permitted to satisfy himself that the Frenchmen were white-bodied as well as white-faced; and being a.s.sured that there was nothing to fear from these strange visitors, he signalled to two black women, who had remained hidden during the earlier part of the interview. One was a gin of forty, the second aged about twenty-six; both were naked. The younger woman carried a black baby girl in a kangaroo skin, and Peron was pleased to observe the affectionate care she showed for her child. A surprise as great as that which the young male black had shown concerning the boat, was manifested by the younger woman in a pair of gloves. The weather being cold, a fire was lit, when one of the sailors, approaching it to warm himself, took off a pair of fur gloves which he was wearing. "The young woman, at the sight of that action, gave forth such a loud cry that we were at first alarmed; but we were not long in recognising the cause of her fright. We saw, from her expressions and gestures, that she had taken the gloves for real hands, or at least for a kind of living skin, that could be taken off, put in the pocket, and put on again at will. We laughed much at that singular error; but we were not so much amused at what the old man did a little later with a bottle of arack. As it contained a great part of our drink, we were compelled to take it from him, which he resented so much that he went off with his family, in spite of all I could do to detain them longer."

At Bruni Island, Peron and a party of his compatriots had an adventure with a party of twenty native women. He did not find them charming. All were in the condition in which Actaeon saw Diana, when "all undrest the s.h.i.+ning G.o.ddess stood," though they did not, when discovered, glow with: