1770          It was a day of pleasant weather and fair wind when Joseph Banks

on the ship ‘Endeavour’ watched penguins swimming alongside

keeping up and while they were at it making noises something like

the shrieking of a goose.

Diomedaea demersa? he wondered

on the 4th of March – I cannot be certain.

                    Three weeks later, having read his Abel Tasman, Joseph Banks recorded

At night came to an anchor in a Bay

in some part of which

it is probable

that Tasman anchor’d.

                    Another three weeks and

they were sailing with a brisk breeze of wind and cloudy

unsettled weather. Joseph Banks saw Land again.

He watched as three waterspouts formed and dissolved

moved to each other and

away, all between us and the land.

The pipe itself was perfectly transparent

and much resembled

a tube of glass.

                    On April 20th at noon

Joseph Banks saw smoke again.

The country this morn

rose in gentle sloping hills which had the appearance

of the highest fertility, every hill seem’d

to be cloth’d with trees of no mean size

a smoak was seen

a little way inland and

in the Evening several more.

                    The next day Joseph Banks, after seeing

smoke again and again, concluded

the land was rather more

populous than first thought.
That night

five fires.




                    The next day, as the ‘Endeavour’ slapped across the waves

paralleling on port-side

the new coast, Joseph Banks

thought about the people he had seen and concluded

not much in favour of our future friends.

They didn’t make large fires

in order to clear the ground

for cultivation.

                    As the ‘Endeavour’ nosed for anchorage and bays

they drew closer to the shore near enough to discern

five people who appear’d enormously black. Joseph Banks

stood on deck and thought

perhaps so far did the prejudices which we had built

on Dampier’s account

influence us

that we fancied we could see their Colour

when we could scarce distinguish whether or not

they were men. The next day

April 23rd, was calm. Myself in small boat but saw

few or no

birds.

                    Being a man of science

he dipped his net into the new waters

and pulled out Cancer Erythroptamus, Medusa radiata,

Dagysa gemma, Holothuria obtusata,

Phyllodoce Velella and Mimus volutator

cornuta, strumose and pelagica.

                    Later, Joseph Banks wrote in his journal

a larger fire was however seen

than any

we have seen before.

A week or so later, in the place to be known

as Botany Bay, Joseph Banks saw the fires

(fishing fires as we suppos’d)

during the greatest part of the night.

In the morn we went ashore at the houses

but found not the least good effect from our present yesterday: in the house

in which the children were yesterday

was left every individual thing

which we had thrown to them and in the evening Myself with the Captn etc.

were in a sandy cove on the Northern side of the harbour

where we haul’ld the seine

and caught many very fine fish

more than all hands could Eat



 Banks, Sir J 2005, The Endeavour Journal of Sir Joseph Banks, Project Gutenberg

of Australia, text version prepared in 1962 from manuscript ‘The Endeavour

Journal of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768-1771’ held at the State Library of NSW. ↩