The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change
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On top of all this, the surrounding countryside looked to be devoid of natural resources for the crew. Food was urgently needed because scurvy had struck. Numbers of men were showing the early symptoms of loose teeth, including Banks, who was dosing himself with lime extract. Charles Green and Tupaia, their Polynesian translator, had developed the putrid gums and livid leg spots characteristic of the advanced stages of the disease. Not even the English scurvy expert Dr. James Lind had yet produced a certain cure for this terrible “Explorer’s disease.” Cook knew from experience, though, that fresh vegetables and fruit always had an ameliorative effect, so he requested Banks to help find these immediately.
The ambitious young naturalist saw this sojourn on land as a chance to gather potentially useful seeds, plants, fruits, and grains for future cultivation, and to discover new specimens to extend Linnaeus’s taxonomic scale of the divine order of nature, “in which species had been created and fixed.” Banks, who also sympathized keenly with Cook’s anxiety about locating nutritious food, alas soon reported that suitable plants were not to be found in this soil, “by nature doomed to everlasting Barrenness.” The sailors collected everything they could find, but it proved to be a thin array of cabbage palms, “very bad” beans, fibrous plantains, stone-filled native wongai plums tasting like “indifferent Damsons,” and a type of wild kale resembling the West Indian cocos. Even Cook, who liked to set an example by wolfing down any form of fresh food, found these cocos roots too acrid to stomach, though he and Banks ineffectually tried to convince the ship’s hands that the cooked leaves tasted “little inferior to spinach.”15
The bizarre animal life around the river, which appeared to be the product of an alternative creation, offered little better. At first the kangaroo seemed a promising source of fresh meat, even if it was an animal that Banks and his colleagues struggled to define. They compared it variously to a greyhound, a giant rabbit, and a local equivalent of the tiny hopping “jerboa” rodent of Africa. Whatever it was, Banks thought it new to science and “different from … any animal I have heard or read of.” The first specimen killed was “capital eating,” but after this the creatures easily evaded Banks’s greyhounds in the long grass, and the only other specimens to be shot consisted of a rank-tasting elderly male and a joey carrying little meat.16
Ducks, cockatoos, bustards, and parrots were equally shy and elusive: pigeons proved to be the only edible bird slow enough to be shot, but never in sufficient numbers to feed the hands. Neither did anyone manage to kill the yellowish wild dogs or “wolves” that a few seamen sighted. An “opossum” that brought Banks great joy because the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon, thought them exclusive to America also escaped the pot. One old salt reported seeing an animal “about as large and much like a one gallon cagg, as black as the Devil & had two horns on its head, it went but slowly but I dard not touch it.” Hawkesworth pardoned the man’s timorousness on the grounds that “the batts here … have a frightful appearance, for they are nearly black, and full as large as a partridge.” Perhaps the sailors would have eaten this plump-looking flying “devil”—they are a delicacy in Vanuatu today—but nobody managed to shoot one.17
After all these efforts, the only person to show a marked improvement in health was the translator Tupaia, who’d set up camp independently on the foreshore and dosed himself on a diet of fish caught in the river. Unfortunately, similar efforts to catch fish for the crew using the ship’s net proved too unreliable to make a noticeable difference. This paucity of resources began to look ominous for reasons other than the state of the crew’s health. The first was revealed by another hill climb, on June 30, aimed at locating a passage through the maze of reefs encountered on the way into the Endeavour River. “Mr. Banks and I,” Cook recorded, “went over to the south side of the River and travel’d six or 8 Miles along shore to the northward, where we assended a high hill from whence we had an extensive view of the Sea Coast to leeward; [this] afforded us a Meloncholy prospect of the dificultys we are [to] incounter, for in what ever direction we turn’d our eys Shoals inum[erable] were to be seen.”
Cook and Banks agreed that finding a northward passage “among unknown dangers” seemed the only option, because, as the botanist bluntly put it, the southeast trade wind “blew directly in our teeth.” Successive surveys by the master in the pinnace had disclosed a worsening picture. He reported glumly that he could find no clear passage: the ship was blocked in every direction. It seemed increasingly likely that they would remain marooned for many months, until the trade winds altered and permitted them to sail back along the track from which they’d come.18
A further disappointment followed their meeting with the local “Indians,” who’d been sighted several times but were skittish and evasive about making closer contact. Eventually a series of cautious encounters on July 8 and 9 with small numbers of naked warriors carrying “terrible” lances broke the ice. Both Cook and Banks formed the impression that these tribesmen were lively, intelligent, and athletic, but the explorers’ hopes of repeating their South Seas pattern of trading beads, mirrors, cloth, nails, and trinkets for fresh food and vegetables were dashed. Their offerings were received with obvious indifference and then thrown away when the whites departed. Even Tupaia, who won the tribesmen’s trust sufficiently to be presented with a few small gifts of food, was no more successful in trading for larger supplies. Only once, when offered a small fish, did the warriors express pleasure and animation, a sign that their desire for nourishing food matched that of the visitors.
The eventual solution to Cook’s food crisis came literally out of the blue. During one of the many failed attempts to discover a navigable passage, the master chanced to see large numbers of green turtles basking on the surrounding reefs. After a party of sailors managed to capture a substantial haul of these huge beasts, Banks described the relief and elation felt by all the crew, for “the promise of such plenty of good provisions made our situation appear much less dreadfull; were we obligd to Wait here for another season of the year when the winds might alter we could do it without fear of wanting Provisions: this thought alone put every body in vast spirits.”19
Should their ship manage to escape from the present coral trap, moreover, captured turtles could be kept alive to sustain the next stages of the voyage. By July 15 Banks was gloating at the turtles’ huge bulk—between two and three hundred pounds each—and deliciously flavored fat. “[W]e may now be said to swim in Plenty,” he crowed. How they were able to find such a plenitude of turtles so close to the many Aboriginal clans that depended on them is a puzzle. Modern Guugu Yimithirr knowledge custodians suggest that the Endeavour’s presence coincided with a period when the clans prohibited the taking of turtle so that their numbers could replenish.20
If so, this was an added reason for Guugu Yimithirr displeasure when they saw the Endeavour’s decks crawling with enough green turtles to feed their people for a considerable time. On July 19, ten warriors armed with spears boarded the ship in a determined mood. When their leader’s request for a gift of one of the thirteen turtles was refused, angry warriors tried to carry two of the massive creatures to a waiting canoe. Several sailors quickly manhandled the men from the gunwales and retrieved the turtles, while Cook tried to appease his visitors with an offer of bread, but “they rejected [it] with scorn as I believe they would have done any thing else excepting turtle.”
Infuriated, the clansmen leaped ashore and deftly set fire to the long dry grass adjoining the ship’s tents—an act that threatened to destroy the fishing net drying nearby. Cook retaliated by firing a musket loaded with birdshot, wounding one of the offenders. Though the man ran off with relatively little loss of blood, this marked a tragic moment. In a sense, the first British–Aboriginal resource war had broken out, and a fatal pattern of incitement and retaliation had begun.21
Yet, if turtles had triggered an environmental war, they also occasioned the first reconciliation between Europeans and A
boriginal Australians. Hawkesworth, with his usual flair for drama, describes at some length the remarkable subsequent encounter between Cook and a group of these warriors:
I set out, therefore, with Mr. Banks and three or four more, to meet them: when our parties came in sight of each other, they halted; except one old man, who came forward to meet us: at length he stopped, and having uttered some words, which we were very sorry we could not understand, he went back to his companions, and the whole body slowly retreated. We found means however to seize some of their darts, and continued to follow them about a mile: we then sat down upon some rocks, from which we could observe their motions, and they also sat down at about a hundred yards distance. After a short time, the old man again advanced toward us, carrying in his hand a lance without a point: he stopped several times, at different distances, and spoke; we answered by beckoning and making such signs of amity as we could devise; upon which the messenger of peace, as we supposed him to be, turned and spoke aloud to his companions, who then set up their lances against a tree, and advanced toward us in a friendly manner: when they came up, we returned the darts or lances that we had taken from them, and we perceived with great satisfaction that this rendered the reconciliation complete.22
This moving encounter was undergirded by a stroke of luck of which Cook was blithely unaware. Guugu Yimithirr oral tradition tells us that the inlet where the Endeavour had beached was actually an ancient meeting ground for all the surrounding clans of the district. Here they traded goods, negotiated disputes, dispensed trans-clan justice, and enacted key joint rituals of initiation, marriage, death, and mourning. Failure to share the good fortune of turtle bounty in such a place was thus all the more reprehensible, yet it did not override the clan’s ultimate sense of obligation to restore peace.23
In spite of the peaceable outcome, Cook later expressed surprise at the sudden deterioration of relations over the issue of turtles. He conceded that the “Indians” might regard turtle flesh as “a dainty”—as did eighteenth-century urban Englishmen—but it never occurred to him that the Guugu Yimithirr might depend on these animals as a staple. Neither did he realize that the “Indians” practiced food sharing and expected it of others, nor that they considered wild creatures like turtles to be the produce of their own estate, which could not be taken without permission by strangers, white or black. Banks at least sensed something of the tragedy that “they seemd to set no value upon any thing we had except our turtle, which of all things we were the least able to spare them.”24
Thanks to Hawkesworth’s literary leanings, Cook is sometimes portrayed as having viewed the Aborigines of Endeavour River through the prism of a “noble-savage” romantic, though it seems doubtful that the practical, taciturn captain would have idealized “primitives” in the manner of Rousseau. Yet Cook was more than capable of recognizing the skill of the Guugu Yimithirr in managing an environment where the far greater part of soil “can admit no cultivation,” where fresh water was scarce, and where the seas were filled with terrible hazards such as coral reefs: an environment, in short, that had in a mere five weeks tested the civilized European sailors to their limits. As Cook noted in one of his most quoted passages:
… in reality they are far more happy than we Europeans; being wholly unacquainted not only with the superfluous but the necessary Conveniencies so much sought after in Europe, they are happy in not knowing the use of them. They live in a Tranquility which is not disturb’d by the Inequality of Condition: the Earth and sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary for life, they covet not Magnificent Houses, Houshold-stuff &c, they live in a warm and fine Climate and enjoy a very wholsome Air, so that they have very little need of Clothing and this they seem to be fully sencible of, for many to whome we gave Cloth &c to, left it carelessly upon the Sea beach and in the woods as a thing they had no manner of use for. In short they seem’d to set no value on any thing we gave them, nor would they ever part with any thing of their own for any one article we could offer them; this in my opinion argues that they think themselves provided with all the necessarys of Life and that they have no superfluities.25
Cook praised the Aborigines’ ability, with spear and boomerang, to kill birds, fish, and animals so shy that the Europeans “found it difficult to get within reach of them with a fowling-piece.” His detailed description of the technology and use of the woomera, or throwing spear, verged on professional awe.
Their offensive weapons are Darts, some are only pointed at one end and others are barb’d, some with wood others with the Stings of Rays and some with Sharks teeth &c, these last are stuck fast on with gum. They throw the Dart with only one hand, in the doing of which they make use of a peice of wood about 3 feet long made thin like the blade of a Cutlass, with a little hook at one end to take hold of the end of the Dart, and at the other is fix’d a thin peice of bone about 3 or 4 Inches long; the use of this is, I beleive to keep the dart steady and to make it quit the hand in a proper direction; by the help of these throwing sticks, as we call them, they will hit a Mark at a distance of 40 or 50 yards, with almost, if not as much certainty as we can do with a Musquet, and much more so than with a ball.26
He was impressed, too, by their “facility” in the use and spread of fire, and their skills in building outrigger canoes fourteen feet long, using only shell, coral, stone, and the abrasive leaves of the wild fig tree. He even conceded that their smaller, cruder bark canoes perfectly matched their owners’ needs and habitats: “These canoes do not carry above 2 people … but, bad as they are do very well for the purpose they apply them, better than if they were larger, for as they draw but little water they go in them upon the Mud banks and pick up shell fish &c without going out of the Canoe.”27
This last observation was additionally pertinent when Cook and Banks learned from the master on July 19 that he’d found no passage forward or back, northward or southward, suitable for a ship of the Endeavour’s size and draft. Banks neatly summarized Cook’s dilemma, coining a term to describe the surrounding “reefscape” that everyone, including the captain, would quickly adopt. “We were ready to sail with the first fair wind but where to go?—to windward was impossible, to leward [leeward] was a Labyrinth of Shoals, so that how soon we might have the ship to repair again or lose her quite no one could tell (italics added).”
On August 6, after warping out of the harbor and embarking hesitantly behind the pinnace on a northeast course, Cook quickly had to take a fresh survey. He dropped the sails, anchored the ship against the buffeting gale, then climbed the masthead, but still saw no passage. This most decisive of captains was at a loss: “… as yet I had not resolved whether I should beat back to the Southward round all the shoals or seek a passage to the Eastward or to the northrd, all of which appear’d to be equally difficult and dangerous.” He resembled Theseus trying to circumvent the Minotaur, the monstrous man-bull that lurked in the maze of the Labyrinth, but in Cook’s case there was no prospect of an Ariadne to lead them to safety.28
Reconnoiters the following day from the headland promontory of Cape Flattery revealed a further shock—what Banks called a “ledge of rocks” or “a Grand Reef” that blocked them from entering the open sea. They’d sighted for the first time what we today call the outer Barrier. On August 11, Cook and Banks rowed to the steepest of a group of three nearby islands in the desperate hope that “the shoals would end.” Climbing the highest hill dashed this hope. “When I looked around,” recorded Cook, “I discovered a Reef of Rocks, laying about two or three Leagues without the Island, and extending in a line N.W and S.E. farther than I could see on which the sea broke very high.” Straining his eyes further, however, he could detect some faint fissures in the long chain of white breakers that might prove to be channels through the Reef. On their way back down to the beach, they named the place Lizard Island, after the giant monitor lizards they saw crashing through the underbrush.29
Within hours Cook and his officers agreed they must attempt to navigat
e one of these small channels into the open sea, rather than risk being “locked in by the great reef,” which would likely “prove the Ruin of the Voyage” by forcing them to turn back, lose the prevailing winds to the East Indies, and run out of provisions. On August 13 the Endeavour followed the pinnace into a narrow channel earlier reconnoitered by the master. Once through the breakers, they found themselves in “a well growen sea rowling in from the SE,” with no ground at 150 fathoms. Once again Hawkesworth imagined the unspoken thoughts that underlay Cook’s much terser journal entry.
Our change of situation was now visible in every countenance, for it was most sensibly felt in every breast: we had been little less than three months entangled among shoals and rocks, that every moment threatened us with destruction; frequently passing our nights at anchor within hearing of the surge that broke over them; sometimes driving toward them even while our anchors were out, and knowing that if by any accident, to which an almost continual tempest exposed us, they should not hold, we must in a few minutes inevitably perish. But now, after having sailed no less than three hundred and sixty leagues, without once having a man out of the chains heaving the lead, even for a minute, which perhaps never happened to any other vessel, we found ourselves in an open sea, with deep water; and enjoyed a flow of spirits which was equally owing to our late dangers and our present security.30
Perhaps they celebrated that night with a feast of turtle?
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At this point Joseph Banks delighted in the paradox “that the very Ocean which had formerly been looked upon with terror by … all of us was now the Assylum we had long wish’d for and at last found.” Yet his elation was short-lived, for hardly had the crew finished exulting in the freedom of the open sea than Cook, instead of steering northeast as everyone expected, set a course westward, straight back toward the Reef.