The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 Part 33

There are certain discrepancies, however, which cannot be explained away, unless it is taken into consideration that Grey visited those coasts three hundred and thirty years after the French sailor, and that during that interval of time the customs of the inhabitants cannot fall to have undergone a change. It may be also that the light-coloured people seen amongst them are but the remnants of once numerous tribes, probably of Malay origin, as these latter have left undeniable marks of their having not intermixed with the native races throughout the whole of northern Australia. One of the points of dissemblance which might be pointed out is the fact that De Gonneville describes them as using bows and arrows, which is at variance with our knowledge of the arms of the Australians, and equally differs from Grey's description of the same; but this objection exists also as regards the inhabitants of Madagascar, who, besides, had already attained a much higher degree of civilisation than that described by De Gonneville--being acquainted with the use of iron, the manufacture of cotton and silk goods, fine mats, and many other articles of value among civilised people. The Madagascar natives never made use of the skins of animals as an article of dress, whilst this custom is common to the aborigines of all parts of Australia, where the kangaroo, opossums, native bears, and emus, furnish them with the material, with which they could manufacture these garments of skins or beds of feathers described by De Gonneville. But if the theory is accepted, which we are about to put forward regarding the inhabitants of this part of Australia--that at the time of De Gonneville's visit a people of Malay origin inhabited it in fairly large numbers, of which the light-coloured natives seen by Grey are the descendants, and that with their disappearance from that district some of their customs disappeared with them, the natives of the present day retaining only those best suited to their actual mode of life--then the Norman captain's narrative will become intelligible. Besides, as regards the use of bow and arrow, certainly known to the Malays, although the intercourse of the latter with other tribes on the north Australian coast has been undoubtedly frequent, nowhere have the Australian natives adopted that kind of arm, whilst in New Guinea and all over Northern Polynesia the bow and arrow is the inevitable war accoutrement of the savage, who certainly obtained the knowledge of it from his Malay forefathers. No wonder, then, that in the district explored by Grey, these arms should have given way to the equally effective boomerang, throwing-stick, and spears, and other weapons of the North Australian savage.

The theory we have just submitted with regard to the country round the Glenelg River and that of the Prince Regent having been at one time inhabited by a different and superior race is no idle one, and is proved by the discoveries of remarkable paintings made by the same Lieutenant Grey in the caves near the mouth of the abovenamed rivers.

Again we shall have to quote this excellent author, whose clear and concise descriptions are of such value, and refer the reader to the following pa.s.sages in the diary of his explorations in that part of the Australian Continent:--

"On this sloping roof the princ.i.p.al figure (1) which I have just alluded to was drawn. In order to produce the greater effect, the rock about it was painted black, and the figure itself coloured with the most vivid red and white. It thus appeared to stand out from the rock, and I was certainly surprised at the moment that I first saw this gigantic head and upper part of a body bending over and staring grimly down on me.

"It would be impossible to convey in words an adequate idea of this uncouth and savage figure; I shall, therefore, only give such a succinct account of this and the other paintings as will serve as a sort of description to accompany the annexed plates.

"Length of head and face 2 ft. 0 in.

"Width of face 0 ft 17 in. (sic) "Length from bottom of face to navel 2 ft 6 in.

"Its head was encircled by bright red rays, something like the rays which one sees proceeding from the sun when depicted on the signboard of a public house. Inside of this came a broad stripe of very brilliant red, which was coped by lines of white; both inside and outside of this red s.p.a.ce were narrow stripes of a still deeper red, intended probably to mark its boundaries. The face was painted vividly white and the eyes black, being, however, surrounded by red and yellow lines. The body, head, and arms were outlined red, the body being curiously painted with red stripes and bars.

"Upon the rock which formed the left hand wall of this cave, and which partly faced you on entering, was a very singular painting (2), vividly coloured, representing four heads joined together. From the mild expression of the countenances, I imagined them to represent females, and they appeared to be drawn in such a manner and in such a position as to look up at the princ.i.p.al figure which I have before described. Each had a very remarkable head-dress, coloured with a deep, bright blue, and one had a necklace on. Both of the lower figures had a sort of dress, painted with red, in the same manner as that of the princ.i.p.al figure, and one of them had a band round the waist. Each of the four faces was marked by a totally distinct expression of countenance, and although none of them had mouths, two, I thought, were otherwise rather good-looking. The whole painting was executed on a white ground, and its dimensions were:--

"Total length of painting 3 ft. 6 in.

"Breadth across two upper heads 2 ft. 6 in.

"Breadth across two lower heads 3 ft. 1 in.

These remarkable paintings attracted Grey's attention, and led him wondering as to their origin. The solution to that problem he has however left to others. (Fig 1, see Appendix.)

According to him, the first two frescoes--i.e., those situated on the roof of the cave, representing the princ.i.p.al figure, and that representing the four persons (probably women), are one subject. A glance at their position, and the expression of their faces, leads one to accept Grey's opinion as not only admissible, but as the only accurate one. The group of women is placed in an att.i.tude of prayer, or of submission towards the central figure, also representing a woman, as all except the head-dress, which is a little different, exactly resemble the others; it is also evident that the artist wished to represent a religious subject.

It is necessary to remark that the people among which these drawings have been found belong to an almost savage race, and in admitting that they may be the work of a superior race that once inhabited these parts (which, by the way, is the opinion of Sir George Grey), yet this superior race could hardly be any other but some Malay tribe. Among these latter, as well as among all savage, or semi-savage people, woman is considered as a being of an inferior order, more fit to become a slave than to be worshipped, and as the Malays had either adopted for centuries past, either one of two creeds, that of Buddhism from the Hindoos, or that of Mahomet from the Arabs, we look in vain, save in the former, and that in only one or two well-known instances, which cannot for a moment be entertained here, for the worship of a woman. The Malay religious artistic subjects that we know of are of an order far above that of which we have a sample here, and there is no resemblance at all in their paintings with anything depicted in these caves.

There are several points of importance with regard to these pictures, to which we beg to direct the reader's attention. In the first place, the perfect oval shape of the head; secondly, the colour of the face, which is painted VIVIDLY WHITE, evidently for some purpose; and thirdly, the fact that the kind of dress worn over the bodies exactly resembles that described by De Gonneville as worn by the women of the Southern Indies, made of some kind of matted material, sometimes also of skins, or of feathers, girt above the haunches and reaching to the knee. (Fig. 2, see Appendix.)

Compare, also, the date a.s.signed by Grey to these pictures-two or three centuries, and this coincidence will appear still more remarkable.

But to return to the subject. It is difficult, if not impossible to credit the natives at the time of Grey's visit as being the authors of these paintings. The eminent traveller absolutely discredits such a possibility, and attributes them to a far distant epoch, and a totally different race. The perfect oval shape of the faces was not drawn so without a purpose, and neither were they painted so vividly white, if the artist had not desired to pourtray types of a race certainly not existing at present on the the Australian continent. It is difficult to admit that it might be of Malay origin, as tile head-dress, or to describe it more perfectly, the AUREOLA surrounding the head, is met with in Buddhist paintings or sculptures only as surrounding the head of G.o.ds, who can always be recognised by their peculiar and constant characteristics, and nowhere are these AUREOLAS surrounded with the rays in the shape of "FLAMeCHES," which confront us in the drawing of the princ.i.p.al figure.

(Fig. 3, see Appendix.) It resembles, indeed, much better Grey's own description:--

"Its head was encircled by bright red rays, something like the rays which one sees proceeding from the sun, when depicted on the sign board of a public house."

There is evidently here some strange mixture of European and Malay art, the former exhibited in the remarkable AUREOLAS which so commonly surround the heads of saints in the old images, in painted church windows of the middle ages, and the times of De Gonneville, and the latter in the kind of dress over the body, which appears to be meant to represent some sort of matted stuff. This painting is not the work of a native artist; it is unlikely that it could be the work of Malays, in the third place there is in its position and its peculiar appearance such a striking touch of an European conception, mingled with barbaric surroundings, that one is almost inclined to the belief that we are here in the presence of a subject of religious, nay, a Christian order.

This deduction may need additional evidence, and if the reader will kindly follow with us Lieutenant Grey's steps, he will be placed in the presence of a still more remarkable painting, which we shall presently describe.

"The cave was twenty feet deep, and at the entrance seven feet high and about forty feet wide. As before stated the floor gradually approached the roof in the direction of the bottom of the cavern, and its width also contracted so that at the extremity it was not broader than the slab of rock which formed a natural seat. The princ.i.p.al painting in it was the painting of a man ten feet six inches in length, clothed from the chin downwards in a red garment which reached to the wrists and ankles; beyond this red dress the feet and hands protruded, and were badly executed.

"The face and head of the figure were enveloped in a succession of circular bandages, or rollers, or what appeared to be painted to represent such. These were coloured red, yellow, and white, and the eyes were the only features represented on the face. Upon the highest bandage, or roller, a series of lines were painted in red, but although so irregularly done as to indicate that they have some meaning, it is impossible to tell whether they were intended to depict written characters or some ornament for the head. This figure was so drawn on the roof that its feet were just in front of the natural seat, whilst its head and face looked directly down on anyone who stood in the entrance of the cave, but it was totally invisible from the outside. The painting was more injured by the damp and atmosphere, and had the appearance of being much more defaced and ancient than any of the others which we have seen.

There were two other paintings, one on each side of the rocks, which stood on either side of the natural seat: they were carefully executed, and yet had no apparent design in them, unless they were intended to represent some fabulous species of turtle; for the natives of Australia are generally fond of narrating tales of fabulous and extraordinary animals, such as gigantic snakes, etc." (Fig. 4, see Appendix.)

With this drawing, as well as in the others, it is evident that native talent had nothing to do. Neither had, in all probability, the Malays, as the form of the dress and its colour are incompatible with anything we know of these people. Then again the same AUREOLA surrounds the head of the figure, and we are inclined to think that this drawing is due to the same artist who painted those already described. Although Grey believes that it is a more ancient production, the face of it having suffered more than the other is in all probability due to it being more exposed to atmospheric, or other influences, rather than to its greater antiquity.

There are, however, some very interesting points to examine in this drawing, and in the first place our attention is drawn to the curious signs inscribed on the AUREOLA surrounding the head.

At first sight, an illiterate person would at once exclaim, "these are Latin characters."

G I T I L F

Five out of six undoubtedly are such, and the sixth appears to be part of an unfinished or defaced letter, probably F or E. This is evidently very remarkable, and more so is the fact which a closer examination discloses that near the right shoulder of the figure two additional characters, C D, also undoubtedly of Latin form, are there inscribed, proving the European origin of this drawing, which resembles exactly those paintings of the middle ages, representing some holy monk or nun in their habilaments, of a coa.r.s.e, brown cloth, the hands, and still more so the feet in that, position which painters of religious subjects have rendered us so familiar with on the old church windows, and other paintings of those times. The practice of printing the name of the saint on the AUREOLA encircling the head is also a common one, and perhaps we may find there an explanation of that painting, which will also prove the others to be of like origin. These characters are, undoubtedly, Latin, whichever way one might like to turn them, and their appearance in such a spot is not due to chance alone. It would be a difficult task to attempt to explain their meaning, but, perhaps, a further exploration of these singular caves may bring to light information leading to their identification and explanation. Suffice it to say that they certainly tend to show the European and Christian character of these paintings, the first one probably representing the holy women praying before the Virgin, and the other some holy nun, as the line over the chin seems to indicate the well-known head-dress. It may be objected that the Virgin could hardly have been pourtrayed in such a costume, to which the answer may be made, that it was a common custom at the time, among the disciples of Francis Xavier who evangelised India, to represent the Virgin and the saints in the costume of the country, in order to bring them in an easier way to the conception of the native mind, a practice, need it be added, which brought on the head of the Jesuits the most severe condemnation.

If such is the case, and if these paintings are, as we believe, the work of Europeans, we might look in their vicinity for some other and still more convincing proof of their origin.

Such is afforded also, and the evidence is telling.

For the last time we shall quote the same eminent author, and at page 205 of vol. 1. of his work, we read:--

"After proceeding some distance, we found a cave larger than the one seen this morning; of its actual size, however, I have no idea, for being pressed for time I did not attempt to explore it, having merely ascertained that it contained no paintings. I was moving on when we observed a profile of a human face and head, cut out in a sandstone rock which fronted the cave; this rock was so hard that to have removed such a large portion of it with no better tool than a knife and hatchet made of stone, such as the Australian natives generally possess, would have been a work of very great labour. The head was two feet in length, and sixteen inches in breadth in the broadest part; the depth of the profile increased gradually from the edges where it was nothing, to the centre where it was an inch and a half. The ear was rather badly placed, but otherwise the whole of the work was good, and far superior to what a savage race could be supposed capable of executing. The only proof of antiquity that it bore about it was that all the edges of the cutting were rounded and perfectly smooth, much more so than they could have been from any other cause than long exposure to atmospheric influences.

"After having made a sketch of this head I returned to the party."

Now let us examine, without prepossession or prejudice, this remarkable sculpture, THE ONLY HEAD SCULPTURED IN ROCK EVER FOUND IN AUSTRALIA.

This profile is that of an European, the purity of the lines, the perfect shape of the head, the straight and well-formed nose, the finely-cut lips, the round chin, represent the most exact type of an European head that it could be possible to imagine. Indeed, the fact alone that the natives have no means of cutting out such a sculpture in the rock, is enough to induce one to seek elsewhere for its author, and the head is certainly not that of a Malay; the type is European, and that of the purest.

We shall go no further with this discussion, which the appearance of this sculptured profile of an European head closes on our behalf better than all volumes would do, and resume it in a few words.

De Gonneville, carried away by storms into unknown seas, lands on a coast which he estimates is situated to the south of India, and the Islands of Spices, and not far from the true course to the East Indies; at the entrance of a fine river, and in a fertile country, whose inhabitants he describes. They were in all probability of Malay stock, and there is no difficulty so far to understand his female relative having married a person of that race, the remnants of which have been met with since by other travellers.

Three hundred and thirty-five years after De Gonneville's voyage, King and Grey explore in the north-west part of Australia, a country whose description well answers to that visited by De Gonneville, and NEVER SET FOOT UPON BY EUROPEANS IN THE INTERVAL. There Grey finds a river such as De Gonneville describes--a land inhabited by races that have preserved many of the customs of the "Australians" described by the Norman captain with whom, as a volunteer in the voyage, had travelled a certain Nicole Le Fevre, a man of some learning' and a kind of artist, who had pourtrayed strange beasts, etc., "utterly unknown in Christendom." In that country', at a very short distance from the coast, Grey discovers curious paintings, some strikingly resembling the pictures of saints as represented on the Church windows of the time, one of them bearing some very remarkable European letters and characters, and last of all he finds there the head of an European sculptured in the hard rock, evidently with instruments such as the natives do not possess.

What are we to conclude from these facts? That there is strong evidence that De Gonneville, who could have landed nowhere else but on Australian soil, had precisely landed on that part of the country visited by Grey, and that the paintings discovered are the work of some of his companions.

But although such evidence is strong indeed, it is not yet absolutely perfect, even for one desirous of solving the problem of fixing the exact position of the spot visited by the Norman sailor. Others, perhaps, may give a different interpretation to the figures and the characters represented above; they are, however, worthy of attracting notice, and if the result of this investigation is only to draw the attention of those who are interested in ascertaining the previous history of the country they inhabit and love, be they members of scientific societies or of colonial governments, the task undertaken will not prove a thankless one.

One thing is settled, however, beyond the possibility of doubt, and that is, that De Gonneville landed on no other soil but that of Australia, and nowhere else but at the mouth of some of the north-western rivers.

The maps of the sixteenth century, known to have existed long before the voyages of the Dutch and the English, bear witness to the fact that the north-western part of the coast of Australia was sighted by the Portuguese on their voyages to and from the East Indies and the Spice Islands.

A critical examination of these charts, some of which have been reproduced for the Public Libraries of the chief Australian cities from the originals in the British Museums, tends to show--although most of the names of features on the north-west coast are in French--that some of them appear to have been translated from the Portuguese. The older of these charts bears the date of the year 1542, but there are two more maps in the "Bibliotheque Nationale de France" which are still more ancient.

One, which is the work of Guillaume Le Testu, a pilot of Dieppe, shows a portion of the coast in a fairly correct position, indicating features which can easily be recognised, although their longitude and lat.i.tude are not exact; the names, which are all in French, do not exhibit any sign of having been translated from any other language; and there is little doubt that Le Testu, who published this chart in 1536, must have heard of the expedition of De Gonneville, which could hardly have failed to attract attention at the time among the sailors of note in the ports of the Normandy coast. Considering the state of geographical science at that epoch, the delineation of the north-west coast of the Australian continent is certainly as accurate as that of the island of Java and minor islands in those regions, which were much better known, and there is in this fact evidence enough that the data upon which Le Testu, Jean Rotz, and other cartographers worked, must have been fairly accurate. The Norman pilot shows on his map the entrance of several rivers and features which closely resemble the outline of this coast as at present known, but except in the vicinity of the rivers mentioned, the coast on the south and the north-east is prolonged without data, and merely indicates a probable extension of land in these directions. The other maps agree fairly well in this respect, the outlines of very small portions only of the coast being--susceptible of identification at present. From these facts we may infer that Guillaume Le Testu probably obtained much of his information from the report of De Gonneville, whilst Rotz and the authors of the maps in the British Museum had theirs from Portuguese sources, and as the latters' delineation of the north-west coast is less accurate, it may be that the Portuguese sailors, from whose reports this information was obtained, merely sighted these coasts without attempting to land.

To close this discussion, it may be added, that in most instances the early voyages of the Dutch or possibly the Portuguese to Western Australia were the result of such accidents as befell De Gonneville, as they were carried by storms out of their course to India or the Sunda Islands, and thrown on the west coast of the Australian Continent.

The first claim to the discovery of the Australian Continent may be, therefore, settled in favor of De Gonneville; although, there is little doubt that the existence of a great southern land was suspected by the Chinese, and also by the ancients. This great land, situated on the opposite side of the world, was named by them ANTI-CHTON, and its supposed inhabitants "Antichtones," and the fact of the possibility of it being inhabited at all gave rise to a good deal of discussion among ancient writers. They, however, agreed in the belief that "the fury of the sun, which burns the intermediate zone," rendered it inaccessible to the inhabitants of the world. Plinus, Pomponius Mela, Scipio, Virgilius, Cicero, and Macrobius considered this land as habitable, and the two last mentioned authors held the opinion that it was inhabited by a different race of beings.