Botany Exhumed by Robert H Horton
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Botany Exhumed By Robert H. Horton Botany Exhumed Digitised newspapers on Trove, the availability of British 18th and 19th century newspapers on line, and Ancestry, has surely provided enough material to make something of our nation’s past, which is both a quality and entertaining product. Whilst the British have provided the world with Downton Abbey, where are we, Australia in creating the like. Why this should be we shall leave for discussion on another day. Botany - An exhumation of a nineteenth century community is an attempt to provide a flickering kaleidoscope of the senses, the sounds, sights, smells, touch and taste of the past, which we living in the sanitised and virtual reality of our present, are the lesser for ignoring. The somewhat vain hope is that this work might provide inspiration to others, such that Botany might become our Downton Abbey. That they both have at their core Lords, one Grantham, the other Simeon, might give us some hope. Botany was dead to begin with. The Sydney Airport Authority had said so, and hadn’t they provided a concrete slab of some enormity, tastefully bitumenised in black, which testified to the fact. The property developer having had any guilt assuaged by a suitably academic heritage study, provided monumental towers. The Cooks River, on recognising death was eminent, turned its face and sought refuge to the south, where it entered the sea. To begin our exhumation. Botany though was unique, is unique, the only community in our world to be given that name. It is however in its history that we should begin to see just how unique it is. The Botany we shall attempt to warm to life, is not the larger area of Botany Bay, neither the district of Botany, (a large area including Canterbury,) neither is it the Botany Bay, used a some sort of euphemism for the Colony of N.S.W. It is the relatively small area bounded on its east by the sea and enclosed in swamp and sand on its other boundaries. The advantages of its proximity to Sydney, were largely negated by the slough of despond it inhabited. Lt. James Cook, latterly Captain, on Thursday 3rd May 1770 journeyed up the river which now bears his name - We landed and travel’d some distance inland. We found the country much richer, for instead of sand I found in many places a deep black soil which we thought was capable of producing any kind of grain, at present it produceth besides timber as fine a meadow as ever was seen, some few places were very rocky, the stone is sandy and very proper for building. Eighteen years later, when Arthur Phillip arrived with the First Fleet of convicts. He believed the bay was too shallow and exposed, and the soil around its perimeter was sandy and unsuitable for cultivation. The supply of fresh water was inadequate. On 18th January 1788 he wrote - Several runs of water were found in different parts of the bay ....in the northern part of it is a small creek, which runs a considerable way into the country, the sides of it are frequently overflowed and the low lands near it are a perfect swamp. Captain Watkin Tench of the Marines was even more dismissive. ‘A Survey of Botany Bay took place in September. - I was of the party, with several other officers. We were 1 unanimously of oplnion, that had not the nautical part of Mr. Cook's description, in which include the latitude and longitude of the bay, been so accurately laid down, there would exist the utmost reason to believe that those who have described the contiguous country had never seen it.’ If Port Jackson was to become something more than a collection of wooden huts, lime would be required for mortar. Aboriginal middens of sea shells on the shores of Botany Bay provided a plentiful supply of the material required to be heated in kilns to provide lime. John Palmer, who arriving with the first fleet, became commissary, that is responsible for all stores in the Colony. April 1803; SHIP NEWS- Sailed on Monday last for Botany Bay to take in lime, the John, belonging to John Palmer, Esq. The John, mentioned was also employed sealing in Bass Strait. October 1803; SHIP NEWS - On Monday came in the Bee Colonial vessel, from Botany Bay, with a freight of Lime for the use of Government. She sailed at day light on Sunday morning, and at half past ten was forced to bring off South Reef, in a heavy gale which lasted several hours, during which she parted her hawser, about 20 fathoms of which went with her anchor. December 1803; BOATS. Arrived on Tuesday the Raven, Raby, with lime from Botany Bay. Communication between Sydney and Botany was difficult. Negotiating the ‘perfect swamp’ described by Captain Phillip and negotiating the Sydney Heads, required something more than a rowing boat. The fear of foreign invasion may be a reaction to events in Europe. The word native is used to describe aboriginal people, it is only some time later that the word ‘native’ comes to be used to describe those of European descent born in the Colony. January 1804; Yesterday morning a Native from Botany Bay brought an account of a large ship having anchored there: As the wind was fair for her getting into this Port, the reason for her going into Botany Bay could be in no other way accounted for than the probability of its being some ship with hostile intentions. Every necessary preparation was made, and the detachments at the outposts ordered to be in readiness to march. Major Johnston immediately set off to reconnoitre, and was soon after followed by the GOVERNOR…on their return it was found the ship was small, and no appearance of anything befell. …In the…night the GOVERNOR was informed by a letter from the Master that the ship Mary Mary of Bokan is bound for Manilla. In 1803, Governor King sent to London, for some smallpox vaccine, which had been discovered by the English doctor, Edward Jenner in 1798. One would have to doubt the feasibility of this idea. January 1804; It was generally accredited by the Medical Gentlemen of the Colony on its first establishment, that the small pox had been introduced among the Natives by the crews of the French ships then lying in Botany Bay; but since that period no vestige of that disease has ever appeared. Given the historical attitude of the British toward the French, it is not clear where the truth lies. February 1805; A sailor indulging in an excursion to Botany Bay on horseback during Sophia’s stay, unable to make the animal answer the helm, was unfortunately unshipped upon a bed of pretty rough ballast; from which being unable immediately to emerge, the creature shot a-head, and did not again heave in sight until totally dismantled. the honest 2 Tar, not daring to renew his peril under such accumulated disadvantages, determined to take the prize in tow, and lest he should be left astern again, grappled ‘fore and aft-the tail answering every purpose of a rudder. Thus cordially padding side by side at the rapid rate of half a knot an hour, the weary travellers ‘with weary steps and slow’ at length returned to port, by an impertinent wag mistaken for the constellation Gemini. The above illustrates how difficult travel to Botany was, the somewhat overblown account below, in which the sailor is rescued by not one but two aboriginals seems to show the latter’s familiarity with the terrain in contrast with that of at least the sailor. A week later; A Trip to Botany. In last week’s delineation of the sailor on horseback, we omitted, a counter-part to the caricature at least equal a subject of the pencil. This was no other than an unfortunate scribe who accompanied the tour to Botany; and supposing a necessity for his making a visit on board the Sophia, secured the animal that had carried him to a branch, …..accomplished his hazardous project in a canoe, the sooty Commander of which in accommodating his passenger, gave a lively representation of the venerable Charon transporting the departed spirit of the practitioner to the Court of Minos. As situations of the doleful cast are sometimes auspicious to the muse of melancholy, until a tremendous howl hurried him into excessive trepidation: the collisive motion of his knees was rapid, his teeth were unpleasantly symphonic, his knotted and combined locks were made to part, and each particular hair to stand or end like quills upon the fretful porcupine.” ,- The noise approached him, and to ascend a tree was become the only avenue to hope. His ascent was … timely, for a couple of furious native dogs, drawn by mischievous instinct to the spot, made for the tree direct; and after imposing an embargo of seven or eight hours by their vexatious presence, at daylight forsook their prisoner to a train of unenviable reflections. Having often changed his uneasy feat among the branches, his garb had sustained actual damage from every limb. Acceptable had the services of the discarded animal then been, but it would have also been the height of folly to wander upon an unprofitable research which must at all events have been the case, but for the friendly guidance of an ancient native, under whose protection he was ushered into town about mid-day; where after undergoing the gratulations of friends on his happy deliverance from a romantic destiny, one quaintly supposed he has taken a bad cause in hand, or he never could have lost his suit.