Life

by Tim Flannery

  Just beyond is Rushcutters Bay, scene of a gruesome murder of two convicts by Aborigines in 1789, while west again is Woolloomooloo Bay, the key ritual site for the Eora. In the harbour nearby, a small castle appears as if floating on the water. Pinchgut is where convicts were exiled to starve, and where the bodies of particularly notorious malefactors were hung in chains until they rotted. Pinchgut was once a beautiful natural rock stack, and not everyone was pleased with its transformation into a fort. In 1841, Reverend John Dunmore Lang wrote, ‘This natural ornament of the harbour, which no art could have equalled, this remarkable work of God, which has stood like a sentinel keeping watch for thousands of years, has been destroyed by the folly of man.’

  We now approach the core of European settlement and three points that define it, named after a remarkable trio whose distinctive histories tell the story of the early city in miniature. The southern pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge rise from Dawes Point, named for one of the most interesting yet largely forgotten of the city’s early residents. William Dawes spent a lifetime trying to build links between black and white. He arrived with the First Fleet as a lieutenant in the marines and was given charge of fortifications and astronomical observations. He built his observatory some distance west of the main camp so that fires would not obscure his view of the night sky. The relative solitude of the location seems to have given him a unique opportunity to interact with the Eora, who at first refused to enter Phillip’s tent city.

  Dawes strove hard to learn the Eora language, and the principal written record he left is two notebooks that document his attempt to do this. They make curious reading, for along the way he seems to have fallen in love with a girl called Patyegarang, whose name means great grey kangaroo. Dawes’ notebooks hint at their growing love, recording events and phrases that haltingly chart its progress:

  I shall not become white: this was said by Patyegarang—after I had told her if she would wash herself often she would become white—at the same time throwing down the towel in despair…

  miahug = lover, sweetheart…

  you don’t want my company?

  we two only…5

  In December 1790 an Eora man named Pemulwy speared the colony’s ‘game keeper’, a man named McEntire. He had been transported for poaching, and in his new role in the colony he continued to practise his profession, only now he was doing it legally, and it was the Aborigines’ game he was stealing. McEntire’s reputation among the Eora was such that he was suspected of carrying out atrocities as well as killing the animals they hunted. Phillip, in an uncharacteristically bloody move, ordered a group of marines to bring him ten Aborigines to be made an example of. Lieutenant Dawes was ordered to participate, but at first refused. Such insubordination could have cost Dawes his life but the governor seems to have respected the man, and gave him a chance to reconsider. After consulting his pastor, Dawes agreed to participate, yet despite the fact that the raid was unsuccessful he was disgusted with himself for relenting, and made it known that he would never participate in such an action again. This left him in malodour with Phillip and, despite his desire to stay an additional three years, in 1792 Dawes was shipped out under a cloud. He eventually moved to the West Indies where he became a tireless campaigner against slavery.

  Sydney grew up between Dawes Point and Bennelong Point, which today supports Danish architect Jørn Utzon’s incomparable Sydney Opera House. In November 1790, at a time when almost all of the Europeans in the settlement were living under canvas or wattle and daub, Governor Phillip ordered a brick house to be built for Bennelong on this prized site. Bennelong himself chose the spot, and for many years it was the focus of Eora activity in the colony. In 1795, however, Bennelong’s house was pulled down, and subsequently a series of other structures occupied the spot.

  The fact that the Opera House stands on the point today is largely due to the vision and determination of one man—Eugene Goossens, conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and director of the state conservatorium in the 1950s. Joe Cahill, the New South Wales premier from 1952 to 1959, wanted to build the new opera house above Wynyard Station but Goossens convinced him to force the Maritime Services Board (which was keen to build a new shipping terminal on the site) to relinquish its plans. His gambit nearly went astray when Goossens was returning to Sydney on one occasion and customs officers discovered pornographic material in his luggage. Despite the fracas, Goossens’ plan went ahead.

  Utzon won the competition to design the opera house in 1957. During construction, costs spiralled from the original $7 million projected by Utzon to $102 million and in response the state instituted the Sydney Opera House Lottery. But by 1965 Utzon had fallen out with both the state government and the construction engineers, so the building, finally opened in 1973, does not strictly conform to his original design.

  So remarkable is the structure, nonetheless, that an image of it adorns the promo of third-rate American television program Unsolved Mysteries of the World. The program’s usual staples are lost treasures, hauntings, telepathy and extraterrestrial visitations. Perhaps the greatest unsolved mystery about the Opera House is just how the people of Sydney, who were busy destroying the old Georgian heart of the city at the time, could have carried through, even imperfectly, such a brilliant and extraordinary plan.

  A couple of decades later the opportunity existed to create an Opera House precinct every bit as majestic as the Opera House itself. That opportunity was lost with the construction, against enormous public opposition, of three blocks of flats commonly referred to disparagingly as ‘the Toaster’. I must forbear from mentioning the official name of these structures, for by linking their construction with the Eora it conveys a gross insult to one of Sydney’s most important Eora leaders. These flats occupy what could have been a magnificent open space linking Circular Quay, the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Opera House. The Toaster is perhaps the greatest act of environmental vandalism visited on Sydney in recent times.

  Long before Utzon’s astonishing structure was to adorn the site that commemorates his name, Bennelong travelled to England where he met George III. Like almost all expatriate Sydneysiders he was miserable during his sojourn away, and he recorded with evident relief upon his return, ‘I’m home now.’ Bennelong died in 1813 at Kissing Point, just a year before Governor Phillip went to meet his maker. With their passing ended Sydney’s first and most extraordinary age.

  Just west of the Harbour Bridge is Blue’s Point. You cannot miss it, for like the nose of Chaucer’s miller it is marred by an outrageous wart. In this case the wart is an apartment block, Blues Point Tower, dominating an otherwise beautiful precinct. Tragically, similar developments are not hard to find throughout Sydney. They are the inheritance of an earlier age when the populace cared less for the beauty of their city, and when thefts of our common wealth by property developers were often called progress. Blues Point was named for Billy Blue, a Jamaican Negro who, for many years in the early nineteenth century, was the town’s favourite son. Known as ‘the Old Commodore’, Billy and his European wife ran a sort of primitive ferry service, rowing people across the harbour at one of its narrowest points. He was also the town wag, cracking public jokes to the delight of all. Many visitors recalled seeing the locals in hysterics as Billy discomfited some high and mighty with a few well-chosen words. Some citizens, however, were not so amused, including one who called himself ‘An Observer’ in a letter to the Sydney Gazette in 1833.

  I intend putting up with the braggardism of Billy Blue no longer. It is a disgrace to our town police that this crying nuisance is not put down. Two very respectable ladies were bellowed about by this sweep and because they hurried on to get out of the reach of his tongue he made use of such language as must have shocked every modest person.

  The editor of the Gazette, however, must have had a fondness for Billy, for he added, ‘We think “An Observer” is hard upon the Old Commodore who has grown into a privileged position. Poor Billy is now nearly a hundred
years old…he intends no harm.’

  When Billy Blue died the following year, the editor eulogised his passing:

  The remembrance of the whimsicality of character which grew with him as he advanced to the end of his earthly pilgrimage will be treasured when the minions of ambition are forgotten in the dust… requiescat—we may never look upon his like again.

  Blue, Bennelong and Dawes were all extraordinary people, notable for building links between races and cultures. They are testimony to the tolerance of diversity that has marked Sydney from its earliest times. Today, with rapid growth, cultural diversity and the development of ghettoes straining the social fabric of this city of about four million, we need to be reminded of this history more than ever.

  Sydney’s Aboriginal people were not beaten by superior European weapons, or indeed by superior European anything—except germs. As with Aboriginal people throughout Australia, their death rates from various epidemics such as smallpox, measles and pulmonary infections were appallingly high, while their birth rates were dismally low. The resulting demographic alone can probably account for their decline. This is hardly surprising, for the First Fleeters were probably the best source of contagion in the world, being drawn from London, one of Europe’s great pestilential and insanitary port cities. The convicts had been living in filth for years and between them doubtless harboured enough diseases to eliminate every isolated human population on the planet. Certainly within three years, syphilis had made such progress in the infant town that Phillip despaired (quite correctly, it turns out) of ever ridding the place of it.

  Despite all of their tribulations, some Eora have survived and today they play an increasingly important role in the life of the city. Some are leading environmental activists, while others contribute significantly to the arts and other spheres of endeavour.

  The changes wrought on the wildlife of Sydney by the First Fleet were profound. The gnar-ruck, as the Eora knew the whitefooted rabbit-rat (Conilurus albipes), was illustrated by a First Fleet artist, who noted that this delightful rodent was a considerable pest to the colony’s storehouses. Sadly, the illustration is the first and last evidence that this now extinct creature ever inhabited the Sydney region.

  Despite the demise of the gnar-ruck, new pillagers of the government store were not long in coming. By 1790 the First Fleeters were writing of the plagues of rats that swarmed about the settlement. I have examined the bones of many eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century rats from archaeological excavations in Sydney and all are from the brown or Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus). In the 1780s this species was a newcomer to England, having arrived from Siberia only a few decades before, at about the time of the ascent of the Hanovers to the throne. To many loyal Britons the creatures were about as welcome as the German-speaking monarchs, and were soon known as Hanoverian rats.

  Today Hanoverian rats are relatively uncommon in Sydney. They survive mostly around dockyards and drains, but elsewhere they have been replaced by a more recent invader, the black or plague rat (Rattus rattus). It’s a species that belies its name, for it is often such an attractive creature, with its white belly and large eyes, that many people refuse to believe that it is not a native but a pest.

  Given the contemporary reputation of Australia as a home of snakes it is curious that the First Fleeters encountered very few of the reptiles, and indeed many believed that there were no poisonous species in the area. By 1805, however, all of this had changed, and the public became alarmed at the number of fatalities occurring at the fangs of these creatures. So common had the reptiles become that in December 1808 an attack even occurred in the Sydney General Hospital. As the Sydney Gazette reported:

  A patient in the General Hospital on Tuesday was attacked by a snake, which twirled around one of his legs, and endeavoured repeatedly to inflict a wound that doubtless would have proved mortal; but was fortunately prevented from taking place by the woollen clothing that the poor man wore. As soon as disengaged the reptile endeavoured to make off, but was detained and killed.

  Not only humans fell victim, for bullocks, horses, sheep, dogs and even caged birds succumbed to the scaly plague. The snakes, I suspect, were attracted by the outbreak of Hanoverian rats, which are an excellent food for the creatures. Already the ecology of the land was changing at the hands of the new invaders.

  A surprising diversity of marsupials survived in the area that is now Sydney until quite late. Rock wallabies adorned Middle Head until hunters eliminated them sometime after the 1860s. Bandicoots were so common in harbourside suburbs that they figure in the childhood memories of many Sydneysiders who grew up before the 1980s. Eastern quolls (cat-like spotted marsupial carnivores) also survived until recently. Once common on the mainland, they are now to be found only in Tasmania. Sydney was their last mainland stronghold, and they were common enough between Manly and Coogee for visiting American museum collectors to obtain specimens there in the 1930s. They made their last stand in the eastern harbourside suburb of Vaucluse, where as late as 1972 they were breeding in the sheds and outhouses of a few lucky local residents. It seems almost unbelievable that the people of Sydney would allow this last precious remnant to become extinct, but the quolls vanished without comment, probably as a result of the council ‘cleaning up’ Neilsen Park, as well as ever denser development.

  Bandicoots are strange and ancient creatures. About the size of a rabbit, they eat insects and are valuable in keeping down garden pests, especially on lawns. They were once abundant, and in the early days provided Governor Phillip and the Eora alike with many a dainty repast. They are also remarkable in that they have the shortest gestation period of any mammal—a mere eleven days. So quickly do they breed that young females still suckling from their dams can be pregnant themselves. Unfortunately their rapid reproduction has not protected them from destruction, for of the three species that once occurred in the Sydney area only one is now left. The tiny remnant surviving around North Head are national treasures—the last land-dwelling marsupials in the Sydney area. They are particularly common on an area known as St Patrick’s Estate, which is owned by the Catholic Church. Perhaps it’s their predilection for early sex that has made them so unpopular with the church. Whatever the case, their 40-million-year tenure on the estate seems to be drawing to a close, for the spirit of St Francis has given way to that of the medieval popes. The church is determined to develop its land for housing.

  Sydney’s birds tell a different story. Their nadir came in the nineteenth century when virtually every man carried a gun and felt free to blast at any feathered thing that came within range. Emu, brolga and magpie-goose were lost to the city at this time, but since then it’s the smaller birds that have suffered. Chats have vanished, while blue wrens have become increasingly rare. Black swans have also largely disappeared from the harbour. In their place, however, have come new arrivals. Sacred ibis colonised the city in the 1980s and today they are common in Sydney parks, where they scavenge from rubbish bins and take tidbits from the hands of toddlers.

  In the late 1990s the wondrous channel-billed cuckoos returned in force. These great, pterodactyl-like birds were recorded by the First Fleeters, but have been scarce ever since. They fly to Australia from New Guinea each summer to lay their eggs in the nests of currawongs and crows, and it may be that Sydney’s vast currawong population has been the lure for their return.

  The large-scale ebbs and flows of species, however, do not tell the entire tale of Sydney’s birds, for local events are also having profound impacts. Of prime importance is the intensifying density of development that is depriving many suburbs of their native vegetation. There are now areas where the only birds you’re likely to see are introduced sparrows, rock pigeons and Indian mynahs. It’s a phenomenon that will grow as concrete replaces trees.

  In the early hours of one winter morning in 1999, Sydney Harbour received a blast from the past. For a few hours, before the ferries started running, and before the flotillas of boats started up, a solitary so
uthern right whale passed between the Heads—the first of her kind to do so for about two centuries. She was probably looking for a safe place to calve or rest, just as countless thousands of her relatives did in the millennia before the arrival of the Europeans. Two months later, a second whale entered the harbour and this one frolicked in its waters for a week. She arrived a decade after the bicentenary of the visit of a less fortunate whale, which in July 1790 capsized a boat, drowning a midshipman and a marine. In revenge the whale was pursued and harpooned several times. A month later its carcass washed up dead on Manly beach. The Eora came to feast on it, and it was during this feast that Governor Phillip was speared.

  If the returning whales offer some hope that wildlife and the city can coexist, there are precious few other indications that such a happy outcome can be achieved. Ever since first settlement, one species after another has been lost, and even today, despite the enacting of endangered species laws and various stops on developers, we continue to lose our precious biodiversity.

  Sydney’s sandstone keeps its European occupants oriented towards the sea, for its infertility and mountain barriers long prevented its people from developing a vast and wealthy hinterland. Instead, Sydney developed as a port city with its orientation towards the Pacific. From the very beginning, exotic peoples walked its streets: Tongan royals, tattooed Maoris, turbaned Malay Lascars, Chinese traders and Aborigines. In this it differs from all the other cities of Australia’s south, for they were always turned towards a Europe made readily accessible across the Southern Ocean by the roaring forties.

  The city began life as an armed camp ruled by a governor whose powers were so wide that everyone who arrived in the colony found themselves sold down from their liberty. The Home Office undoubtedly granted such wide powers to allow Phillip to deal with unrest and disquiet in a thief colony that was at best many months’ sail from London.