been defined. Joseph Banks wrote a summary of their discoveries into his journal:
For the whole length of coast which we sailed along there was a sameness to be observed
in the face of the country very uncommon: Barren it may justly be called and in a very high
degree, that at least what we saw. The soil in general is sandy and very light: on it grows
grass tall enough but thin set, and trees of tolerable size, never however near together, in
general 40, 50, or 60 feet asunder. ...
Water is here a scarce article or at least was so while we were there, which I believe to
have been in the very height of the Dry season; some places we were in we saw not a drop,
and at the two places we filled for the ship’s use it was done from pools not brooks. ...
Of Plants in general the country afforded a far larger variety than its barren appearance
seemed to promise. Many of these have no doubt properties which might be useful, but
for physical and economic purposes which we were not able to investigate, could we have
understood the Indians or made them by any means our friends we might perchance have
learned some of these; for though their manner of life, but one degree removed from brutes,
does not seem to promise much yet they had a knowledge of plants as we plainly could
perceive by having names for them. ...
Quadrupeds we saw few and were able to catch few of them we did see. The largest was
called by the natives Kangooroo that we did see. It is different from any European and
indeed any animal I have heard or read of except the Gerbua of Egypt, which is not larger
than a rat when this is as large as a middling lamb. ...
Upon the whole, New Holland though in every respect the most barren country I have
seen, is not so bad but that between the productions of the sea and land a company of People
who should have the misfortune of being shipwrecked upon it might support themselves,
even by the resources we have seen. Undoubtedly a longer stay and visiting different parts
would discover more.
This immense tract of Land, the largest known which does not bear the name of a
continent, as it is considerably larger than all Europe, is thinly inhabited even to admiration,
at least that part of it that we saw: we never but once saw so many as thirty Indians together
and that was a family.According to Banks they had discovered a completely new existence which he
believed had been formed after the established order of the northern hemisphere.
(^44) Where Australia Collides with Asia
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