The article - Reminiscences of Captain Cook's landing in Botany Bay

THE following facts have been furnished to us by a gentleman who, besides having been present at the meeting on the south side of Botany Bay in 1821, was accustomed from his boyhood, as a native of the colony, to converse freely with the aborigines about Kundel and in all the neighbourhood of Botany Bay and Sydney. One more fully acquainted with the evidence of the aborigines respecting the event which has justly attracted widespread and deep interest, or more reliable as far as his own memory and fidelity are concerned, it would be impossible to find. We are therefore glad to be enabled to supply the public with the facts thus preserved, the aborigines known to our informant as eyewitnesses of Captain Cook's landing were Yadyer, Bullmayne, Dolmoik, Kurrul, Bluitt and Potta (two

brothers), and several others whose names he cannot now recall...

All these aborigines agreed in their statements respecting this great event. They said that when the ship first appeared off the coast they were on the north shore of the bay, at a spot called by the aborigines Kooriwal, but commonly known as "The Frenchman's Gardens."

Yadyer, on seeing the ship, went down to a corner of the beach, where a portion of the tribe were encamped, and told them what he had seen. They all thereupon went up the hill to look. Some of them thought the ships were large birds; others, that it was 'Devil-devil' coming. (The blacks have learnt from the use of the word by white men to call any supernatural terrific being "devil." The word "phantom* expresses as closely as any the idea they attach to the term "devil-devil.'') But, as the objects of their amazement approached the heads of the bay, they came to the conclusion that they were large canoes with people on board. Shortly afterwards, they saw two boats leave the ships, and go to the rocks at Kundel, the point where the brass plate was put up in 1821. Three persons from one of the boats landed just below that point. The exact spot where they landed was repeatedly pointed out to our informant. Bluitt, one of the above named blacks, first, showed it to him.

At that time there were no aborigines at all on the south side of the bay, and, of course, no "protest,'' as some have imagined, against the landing. The boats went round the rock into a little harbour, and the three persons who had landed went round in the same direction. to a spot opposite to the hill, where the house of the Botany Bay harbour master now stands, and within forty yards of the run of water which flows close to the south side of the house. The boat landed at a small gap, where there was a fine run of fresh water. After staying there some time, the boats came over to the north side of Botany Bay and landed on the beach at Kooriwal.

Three persons then landed from one of the boats; one of these had on his head something like a "bang-alle." (The bang-alle is a vessel for carrying water; it is made of bark, drawn together at the ends and fastened with thongs so as to resemble very closely a cooked hat.) These three men walked along the beach, the boats pulling close to the land, till they came to Bumbera Point, half a mile from French Gardens, and north. The blackfellows made their appearance on the bank above the beach with spears and wommeras; bat made no attempt to throw a spear at the strangers. When the aborigines appeared the second time, two guns were fired from the boats, on

which they drew back into the bush. When the three persons who landed came to Bumbera Point, they got into the boat, and after staying there a short time went back : as the ships, which were then anchored just outside the Heads. Either that evening or the following morning two boats came up again to the north side at Bumbera Point, and hauled a seine twice, and then returned to the ships. Such is an accurate report of the landing of Captain Cook, aa seen by aborigines.

...In reference to the meeting in 1821, several persons now living in the colony were present, as well as Mr Berry and Dr. Douglass; among them was Mr Frederic Garland, of Parramatta, who was a boy at the time, and went with his father, then a Judge of the Supreme Court. Sir Thomas Brisbane, the Governor, made on offer on that occasion, in the hearing of our informant; to an old man named Henry Rolfe, to give him a grant of 40 acres of Woolaware Flat as an oyster bed. At that time the whole of that flat was covered with whilk oysters. These were afterward collected by Mr. Thomas Street, of Sydney, and brought by schooner loads into town and burnt for lime.

The blackfellow from whom the members of the Philosophical Society derived their information, was a native of the spot where Liverpool now stands and went by the name of Harry. So that concurrent reports of the six or eight aborigines living at Botany Bay, and

whose testimony is embodied in the above statement, are more reliable than that which has been held forth as the only tradition of Captain Cook's landing."