They soon let us know their errand which was by some means or other to get one of our
Turtle of which we had 8 or 9 lying upon the decks. They first by signs asked for One and
on being refused showed great marks of Resentment; one who had asked me on my refusal
stamping with his feet pushed me from him with a countenance full of disdain and applied
to some one else; as however they met with no encouragement in this they laid hold of a
turtle and hauled him forward to the side of the ship where their canoe lay. It however was
soon taken from them and replaced. They nevertheless repeated the experiment 2 or 3 times
and after meeting with so many repulses all in an instant leaped into their Canoe and went
ashore where I had got before them just ready to set out plant gathering; they seized their
arms in an instant, and taking fire from under a pitch kettle which was boiling they began
to set fire to the grass to the windward ... the grass which was 4 to 5 feet high and as dry as
stubble burnt with vast fury.Turtles were a prized seasonal food source for the Aborigines and to be denied even
just one of the many the crew had collected was an insult that required an act of revenge.
They seemed to set no value on anything the visitors had except for the turtles, which
Banks explains they were least able to spare for this food was necessary for their own
survival. The fire could have been a disaster as all their stores and gunpowder were
ashore while the Endeavour was being repaired, and only that morning the store tent
and the sick tent had been loaded on board in readiness for their departure.
Australian Aborigines are the oldest continuous culture on the planet. They
migrated from Africa around 75,000 years ago and would have reached Australia by
island hopping across the Indonesian archipelago during the lowering of sea levels
and have been living in Australia for at least 50,000 years. James Cook admired the
Aborigines he encountered and their lifestyle, as he wrote:
From what I have said of the natives of New Holland they may appear to some to be the most
wretched people upon Earth, but in reality they are far more happier than we Europeans;
being wholly unacquainted not only with the superfluous but the necessary conveniences
so sought after in Europe, they are happy in not knowing the use of them ... In short they
seemed to set no value upon anything we gave them, nor would they part with anything of
their own for any one article we could offer them; this, in my opinion argues that they think
themselves provided with all the necessaries of life and that they have no superfluities.Having completed their repairs and after forty-seven days ashore, the Endeavour and
its crew were ready to continue their voyage north. If only they could find their way
out of the shoals and reefs that surrounded them and Banks wrote in his journal: ‘We
(^40) Where Australia Collides with Asia
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