Part 1

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=.

These lectures each had a set of associated slides, a complete list of which can be found on pages 143-152 at the end of the book. These slide sets were sold separately and are not part of the book. Some of the slides (those highlighted in =bold= in the slide list) were inserted as illustrations in the original book, and the captions of these illustrations are reproduced in this etext.

The numbers in the right margin of the etext are the numbers of the associated slides. Several of these margin slide numbers are in parentheses ( ) to indicate that this particular slide is being shown for a second time at this point in the lecture.

There are no Footnotes in this book.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.

AUSTRALASIA

EIGHT LECTURES

Prepared for The Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office by A. J. SARGENT, M.A.

LONDON GEORGE PHILIP & SON, LTD., 32, FLEET STREET Liverpool: PHILIP, SON & NEPHEW, Ltd., South Castle Street 1913

(_All rights reserved_)

THE VISUAL INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE

APPOINTED BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF MEATH, K.P., Chairman.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR CECIL CLEMENTI SMITH, G.C.M.G.

SIR JOHN STRUTHERS, K.C.B., LL.D., Secretary to the Scotch Education Department.

SIR CHARLES HOLROYD, Director of the National Gallery.

SIR PHILIP HUTCHINS, K.C.S.I., late Member of the Council of the Secretary of State for India.

SIR EVERARD IM THURN, K.C.M.G., C.B., late Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner for the Western Pacific.

SIR CHARLES LUCAS, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.

DR. H. FRANK HEATH, C.B., of the Board of Education.

A. BERRIEDALE KEITH, D.C.L., of the Colonial Office.

H. J. MACKINDER, M.P., lately Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

W. H. MERCER, C.M.G., Crown Agent for the Colonies.

PROFESSOR MICHAEL E. SADLER, C.B., LL.D., Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds.

A set of Lantern Slides has been prepared in connection with this book, and is sold on behalf of the Committee by Messrs. Newton & Co., 37, King Street, Covent Garden, W.C. (late of 3, Fleet Street, E.C.), from whom copies of this book can be obtained. The complete set of 489 Slides may be had for £39. The Slides to accompany the several Lectures will be sold at the following prices: First Lecture, £4 3_s._; Second Lecture, £5 5_s._; Third Lecture, £4 12_s._; Fourth Lecture, £5 9_s._; Fifth Lecture, £4 13_s._ 6_d._; Sixth Lecture, £5 12_s._ 6_d._; Seventh Lecture, £5 5_s._; Eighth Lecture, £5 4_s._ The Slides will also be sold in sets in which the maps alone will be coloured. The prices in this case will be--for the complete set of 489 Slides, £25 10_s._; First Lecture, £2 17_s._; Second Lecture, £3 6_s._ 6_d._; Third Lecture, £3 5_s._; Fourth Lecture, £3 10_s._; Fifth Lecture, £3 7_s._ 6_d._; Sixth Lecture, £3 7_s._ 6_d._; Seventh Lecture, £3 7_s._ 6_d._; Eighth Lecture, £3 5_s._ The Slides sold on behalf of the Committee may now be purchased separately in batches of not less than two dozen.

The Slides in this Series are Copyright.

PREFACE

These Lectures, like the last series, have been written for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office by Mr. A. J. Sargent, and have been revised at the offices of the High Commissioners for the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand. The lecture on the Pacific has been revised by Sir Everard im Thurn. The slides are derived from pictures painted and photographs taken by Mr. A. Hugh Fisher on behalf of the Committee, supplemented by photographs supplied from various sources. The Committee wish to acknowledge the great help which they have received from the High Commissioners and Agents-General and their staffs in the matter of slides, and in addition their acknowledgments are due to, among others, the Honourable Victor Nelson Hood, the Agricultural Departments of Queensland and Western Australia, the Secretary to the Commissioner for Queensland Railways, and the Government Geologist of Western Australia.

MEATH.

_November, 1912._

PUBLICATIONS OF THE VISUAL INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE

A. Seven Lectures on the United Kingdom.

By Mr. H. J. MACKINDER.

In the following Editions issued on behalf of the Committee by Messrs. Waterlow & Sons, Ltd.:--

=1. Eastern Colonies Edition, Sept., 1905.=

In use in Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, and Hong Kong.

=2. Mauritius Edition, June, 1906.=

In use in Mauritius.

=3. West African Edition, Sept., 1906.=

In use in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and Southern Nigeria.

=4. West India Edition, Sept., 1906.=

In use in Trinidad, British Guiana, and Jamaica.

=5. Indian Edition, March, 1907.=

In use in the following Provinces:--Madras, Bombay, Bengal, the United Provinces, the Punjab, Burma, Eastern Bengal and Assam, the Central Provinces, the North West Province, and British Baluchistan.

=6. Indian Edition, for use in the United Kingdom, Jan., 1909. Price One Shilling net.=

B. Eight Lectures on India.

By Mr. H. J. MACKINDER.

Published by Messrs. GEORGE PHILIP & SON, LTD., 32, Fleet Street, London, E.C., price 8_d._ net in paper covers, or 1_s._ net in cloth.

[=A Lecturer’s Edition= has also been issued, price in cloth, 1_s._ net, and may be had of MESSRS. NEWTON & CO., 3, Fleet Street, E.C.]

Six Lectures on the Sea Road to the East.

By Mr. A. J. SARGENT.

Eight Lectures on Australasia.

By Mr. A. J. SARGENT.

Published by Messrs. GEORGE PHILIP & SON, LTD., price 8_d._ net in paper covers, 1_s._ net in cloth.

[In these two books the ordinary edition and the lecturer’s edition are combined.]

CONTENTS

LECTURE I PAGE AUSTRALASIA 1

LECTURE II

NEW SOUTH WALES, WITH PAPUA 17

LECTURE III

QUEENSLAND 36

LECTURE IV

VICTORIA AND TASMANIA 51

LECTURE V

SOUTH AUSTRALIA AND WESTERN AUSTRALIA 67

LECTURE VI

NEW ZEALAND--SOUTH ISLAND 84

LECTURE VII

NEW ZEALAND--NORTH ISLAND 103

LECTURE VIII

FIJI AND THE WESTERN PACIFIC 122

_NOTE.--The reader is asked to bear in mind the fact that these lectures are illustrated with lantern slides. The numbers in the margin of the text are the numbers of the slides, of which a complete list will be found on pp. 143-152._

LECTURE I

AUSTRALASIA

For nearly two thousand years the existence of a great Southland, in the ocean of the southern hemisphere, corresponding to the land mass of the Old World in the northern, was a matter of doubt and dispute among geographers. In the sixteenth century, this land begins to appear vaguely on globes and charts; possibly the information was due to the Malays and Arabs, who were skilful sailors and made long voyages in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It has been thought that the Portuguese, approaching the Malay region from the west, while the Spaniards came from the east, may have been acquainted with the northern coast of the new continent; since they certainly had some knowledge of the northern coast of New Guinea early in the sixteenth century. But our first definite information may be said to date from the beginning of the seventeenth century, when a Spanish exploring expedition, under de Quiros and de Torres, sailed across the Pacific and discovered the New Hebrides group. One of the islands they named la Australia del Espiritu Santo, under the idea that it formed part of the great southern mainland. De Quiros then sailed back to Mexico, but Torres continued his voyage northwestward through the straits which still bear his name, and so to the Spanish Possessions in the Philippines.

But the day of Spain as a sea power was passing away, and it was to the Dutch traders that the western world owed its first real acquaintance with Australia. The early discoveries were often accidental and did not lead to settlement or regular intercourse with the natives. This was due partly to the backward state of the science of navigation, partly to the fact that the voyagers on long expeditions usually lost from half to three-quarters of their crews from disease. The Dutch had the advantage of a local base, as they were already firmly established in the East Indian Islands; so that Australia was really discovered from the Indies.

Trade, not exploration, was the main motive of the Dutch. So, in the early part of the seventeenth century, trading ships were dispatched from Batavia by the Dutch East-India Company to explore the north and west coasts of Australia.

We find all along these coasts the names of the ships still surviving, as in Arnhem Land and Cape Leuwin; those of the captains, as in Dirk Hartog Island, Houtmans Abrolhos, Edels Land and Nuyts Land; while the Gulf of Carpentaria is a memorial to Peter Carpenter, the then Governor of the great trading company.

The most important voyage of all was that of Abel Tasman, in 1 1642. He started from Mauritius, to discover a passage south of the Australian continent; and after landing in Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania, he sailed across the Tasman Sea and up the west coast of New Zealand, and so back to Batavia by way of Tonga and the Fiji islands and the north coast of New Guinea. He left behind him another name, New Holland, for the whole continent.

These names throughout Australasia bear witness to the skill and energy of the Dutch navigators; but they came only as traders, and the west coast of Australia, which they knew best, had little to attract them to permanent settlement. Sand and grass, hostile natives, and dangerous reefs marked by a series of shipwrecks sum up their impression of the new land. Here are two views of 2,3 the coast; it does not seem attractive for sailors. We can quite understand why they made no effort to open up a trade like that of the East Indies, especially as they missed the east coast, the most promising region for European settlement. Here are two charts showing our knowledge of Australia, the first soon after Tasman’s voyage, the second nearly a century later. 4,5

The discovery of the east coast was to come more than a century later; it was made by an Englishman, at a time when England was looking for new outlets, both for trade and settlement, as an offset to her losses in the continent of North America. It is true that Dampier visited the west coast towards the end of the seventeenth century, and wrote an account of the animals, natives, and plants; but he does not seem to have been much more favourably impressed than the Dutch, and nothing came of his visit.

But in the eighteenth century England and France were the great rivals in colonisation, and voyages of discovery and plans of annexation became the order of the day. It was a revival, in a less forcible though more scientific form, of the old rivalry with Spain and Portugal in the sixteenth century. State influence was behind the explorers, as it had been in the days of Drake and his freebooters. Captain Cook sailed in a ship belonging to the Royal Navy, and not in a trader. In our own country his memory is still kept green in the little port of Whitby where he served his apprenticeship to the sea, and where the ships were built in which he made his great voyages of discovery; in the Antipodes it is for ever associated with the beginnings of a great and growing 6,7 Empire. Here we see his statue in Sydney, and here is a picture of his ship, the _Endeavour_, approaching New Zealand.

Cook came westward, across the Pacific, with an expedition in 1769, to observe the Transit of Venus at Tahiti, and then sailed 8 south-west to New Zealand. He sighted land at Poverty Bay and sailed south as far as Cape Turnagain; then he went right round the North Island and through Cook Strait, until the Cape was again sighted, scattering English names and charting the coast as he passed. Next he circumnavigated the South Island, steering outside Stewart Island, which he imagined to be a peninsula; and so to Cape Farewell, in the north-west corner of South Island. He had obtained a fairly accurate idea of the nature of the coast, and had proved that New Zealand was not connected with the supposed Antarctic continent.

From Cape Farewell he struck westward, and sighted the mainland of Australia at Point Hicks, on April 19th, 1770, but failed to discover Bass Strait. From Point Hicks Cook sailed along the whole of the east coast to Cape York, giving to the bays and capes as he passed them the names of his crew, of British admirals, officials and politicians of all kinds at home. At various landing places he came into collision with the aborigines, and at Endeavour River he stayed for two months to repair his vessel which had been damaged through striking on the rocks. Finally, before sailing westward through Torres Strait, he landed on Possession Island and formally claimed the whole region discovered for the British Crown.

When, in 1798, Flinders and Bass proved that Van Diemen’s Land was an island, the rough work of discovery was complete. Australia, New Zealand and many of the smaller islands were known and charted, and the discoveries of the Spaniards and Dutch were linked up, by the aid of a great deal of miscellaneous exploration carried out by the French navigators who followed us in the South of Australia, in New Zealand, and in the islands of the Pacific.

The navigators, French and English, were in the habit of formally annexing the country wherever they landed; but annexation of this kind was of little value without effective occupation. This was to come later, during the course of the next half century. From 1800 onwards, we may say that the different parts of this vast region begin to have a separate and individual history and development, though behind all are the conditions common to most of the area, conditions which distinguish it sharply from the rest of the world even to-day, in spite of minor differences between its separate parts. There is ample room for variation, since the continent of Australia is about three-quarters the size of Europe, or seven times the area of Germany and France together; and it includes nearly every type of temperate and tropical climate.

Whether we look at the animals, plants, or aborigines of Australia, we are at once struck with the fact that they belong to an entirely different order of life from that which we find in the other great continents. The whole region seems, from a very early age, to have been cut off effectively from the rest of the world, and to have developed along lines peculiar to itself; though since the advent of the white man we have the artificial introduction of European and other plants and animals, which bid fair in many cases to oust the native products, just as the white man has displaced the original inhabitants.

The first animal which we naturally think of in connexion with Australia is the kangaroo. His family is large and varied, from 9 the giant standing six feet high, and dangerous to attack, to the dwarf measured by a few inches. He is a creature of the wide open 10 plains, living on grass, though in Queensland and New Guinea are to be found some which climb the tall gum trees and feed on their shoots. An ancestor of the present kangaroo, whose remains have been discovered, was a formidable monster standing twelve feet high.

The kangaroo is merely the best known representative of a very large group, the marsupials or pouched animals. Closely allied to the kangaroo is the wombat, a clumsy badger-like animal which feeds on leaves and burrows in the ground; he is quite harmless, though, like the kangaroo, he had a huge ancestor who seems to have been as large as a rhinoceros. The bandicoots, ratlike burrowing animals, are his cousins many times removed.

Next we have a group which looks very different but is really closely allied to the kangaroo: the _phalangers_, or opossums, as they are commonly called. The name is adopted from America 11 but is applied in Australia to the wrong group, as we shall see later. Nothing is more misleading than the names given by white settlers, ignorant of botany or biology, to native plants or animals, generally on the ground of some fancied and superficial resemblance. The so-called opossums are found all over Australia and New Guinea and in many of the islands of the Pacific; but owing to the value of their fur they are becoming scarce in many districts. They live in trees, and some of the family have their legs connected by a membrane, so that they can glide from one branch to another. Hence the name flying squirrel; though they do not fly and have no connexion with the squirrel which we know. Here is another of the same group, the _koala_, or native bear; though he again has nothing to do with bears. He is a 12 sleepy-looking animal, with no tail, and is not given to leaping or gliding; though his claws are useful for climbing the gum 13 trees in which he lives. He is quite harmless, and a child can play with him, as we see here.

Other members of the same great family are far from harmless: among them are the _dasyures_, or native cats, with dark bodies mostly spotted with white. Some smaller members of this family are called weasels and mice. To this family belongs also the Tasmanian Devil, whose portrait we have here; he is very fierce 14 though small. A larger animal, the size of a retriever, is the so-called Tasmanian wolf; he is carnivorous, while most of the 15 marsupials are vegetarian. It is rather doubtful whether he should be classed with the rest or go by himself.

The only existing allies of the marsupials of Australia are to be found in the opossums and some other less known animals of South America; but the opossum of South America resembles less his Australian namesake than the other group, the _dasyures_. In Europe and Asia the marsupials existed, but only in very remote geological ages, as their remains prove. It has been argued from the existence of the opossum family in America that at some time there must have been a land connexion between Australia and South America, either by way of the islands of the Pacific or by an Antarctic continent. But the isolation of Australia must have been very ancient, since it has given time for the development of the enormous differences which we have seen among the individuals of the same family.

Even these strange animals, old as they are, are not the most primitive to be found in Australia. The _ornithorhynchus_ or duck-billed platypus lives in a burrow by the river; it has teeth 16 when young, but seems to lose these as it grows up. It is said to lay eggs like a reptile, though it is a true mammal. We are not surprised to learn that when the first stuffed specimen of this strange beast reached Europe it was thought to be a fraud, put together to deceive the ignorant and unwary. Another of these egg-laying animals is the _echidna_, or spiny ant-eater, which has a kind of beak for burrowing and a long sticky tongue to capture its prey. It has sharp spines and rolls itself into a ball like a hedgehog when attacked. In addition to these curious animals there are rats and mice and the dingo, or native dog, of 17 a type more familiar to us. It is thought possible by some that the dingo, being so different from the other native animals, was introduced by man at some very early date.

The typical Australian animals disappear as we travel away through the islands to the north, and the boundary line between Australia and Asia is usually drawn through the strait between Bali and Lombok, and then on between Celebes and Borneo; though it is much disputed whether Celebes belongs to the one region or the other. The division is only a narrow water strait, and we can understand that Asiatic birds would have no difficulty in crossing. On the other hand, as there is no great land mass to the south, there are no crowds of seasonal migrants from cooler regions, such as we find in the warmer countries of the northern hemisphere; so that the existing Australian birds are for the most part allied to the bright-coloured inhabitants of the tropics to the north. Some are peculiar to the region, such 18 as the lyre birds with their wonderful tails, the emu, and the 19 brush birds which bury their eggs in a mound of earth, leaving them to be hatched by the heat of the sun. Other birds, as the honey-eaters, though common in Australia, are found also in the neighbouring islands of the Pacific. Unfortunately, not content 20 with the flowers of the gum trees, these birds now attack the fruit in the orchards and are becoming a nuisance in some districts. Finally we have the _kukuburra_ or laughing-jackass, 21 one of the most popular and best known of all Australian birds. It belongs to the kingfisher tribe and is said to be a great destroyer of small snakes. Nor must we forget the black swan, one 22 of the most striking and beautiful of all, and still to be found in large numbers in the lakes of Gippsland and in West Australia.

Then we have lizards, snakes, and strange fish of all kinds, some peculiar to Australia, others, like the animals, allied to species found in Asia or South America. All the evidence afforded by the animal life of the continent points to a very remote connexion with the other continents, followed by a very long period of isolation during which the families of animals developed wide differences among themselves, together with special peculiarities suited to the conditions in which they lived.