rottnest island - no colonial settlement in 1825

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21/06/10 2:00 PMFremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

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Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

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Monday, June 21st, 2010

Time Event9:38a Rottnest Island - No colonial settlement in 1825

It may be difficult for many people to believe that only one hundred and eighty five years ago in 1825 there was no Perthor Fremantle and absolutely no holiday settlement on Rottnest Island. The first signs that real change was on the way forthe western portion of the continent came with the establishment of a British military garrison on the south coast at KingGeorge Sound in 1826.

However, there had been several visits to the beautiful island beforehand by passing navigators. During research for myPhD thesis I was able to list no less than 57 Dutch, American and British vessels which had visited various sections of theWestern Australian coast prior to the establishment of the Swan River Colony in 1829.

Several of these earlier navigators visited Rottnest. The tale of how Dutchman Willem de Vlamingh described Quokkas in1696 as creatures resembling rats - hense the islands name - is now repeated ad nauseam online by backpacking bloggerswhove experienced a brief a visit on the way to somewhere else.

Much earlier than Vlamingh, in 1658 than Vlamingh another Dutchman named Samuel Volckertzoon had likened them tocats, but he escaped twenty-first century ridicule through caliginosity.

RottnestQuokkas -April 2010

Ignoring the semantics, Quokkas are macropods, a small species of kangaroo, right? I admit they do look a bit like largerats. But Kangaroos are synonymous with Australia - right again. Rats are synonymous with Holland. Everyone shouldknow that by now. This brings me to the main point of this essay. I was in a second-hand bookshop yesterday and foundon a throw-out table a leather covered book published in London in 1825. It was a bound set of The Youths Magazine: orEvangelical Miscellany. I paid $5 for the tome. A bargain considering it was in reasonable condition and had numerouswood cut illustrations and ethnographic essays. Id be willing to bet that Apples iPads wont be giving such reliableservice in one hundred and eighty five years time. On page 248 I found a poem about Australian Kangaroos and seeing asthis is The Year of Biodiversity Im going to share it with you verbatum:

THE KANGAROO________

Mixtum que-genus prolesque biformis. Virg. Enied. 1. vi. 1. 25.The two formed offspring of a blended birth.________

Kangaroo, Kangaroo!Thou spirit of Australia,That redeems from utter failure,From perfect desolation,And warrants the creationOf this fifth part of the earth,Which should seem an afterbirth,Not conceived in the beginning,(For God blessd his work at first,And saw that it was good),But emergd at the first sinning,When the ground was therefore curst:-And hence this barren wood!

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Kangaroo, Kangaroo,Tho at the first sight we should say,In thy nature that there mayContradiction be involvd,Yet, like discord well resolvd,It is quickly harmonizd,Sphynx or mermaid realizd,Or centaur unfabulous,Would scarce be more prodigious,Or labrinthine minotaur,With which great Theseus did war,

Or Pegasus poetical,Or Hippogriff chimeras all!But, what nature would compile,Nature knows to reconcile;And wisdom ever at her side,Of all her childrens justified,She had made the squirrel fragile;She had made the bounding hart;But a third so strong and agileWas beyond een Natures art.So she joined the former twoIn the kangaroo!To describe thee it is hard:Converse of the camleopard,Which beginneth camel-wize,But endeth of the panther size,Thy fore-half it would appear,Had belongd to some snail deer,Such as liveth in a tree;By thy hinder thou shouldst beA large animal of chase,Bounding oer the forests space;Joind by some divine mistake,None but Natures hand can makeNature in her wisdoms play,On creations holiday.For howsoeer anomalous,Thou yet art not incongruous,Repugnant or preposterous.Better proportiond animal,More graceful or ethereal,Was never followed by the hound,With fifty steps to thy one bound.

Thou canst not be amended; no,Be as thou art, thou best art so!When sooty swans are once more rare,And duck-moles the museums care,Be still the glory of this land,Happiest work of matchless hand! From New South Wales.

So this is an example of material which was being disseminated before the colonial process changed Western Australia andRottnest Island forever. For me the anonymous author appears to be leaning towards evolution rather than creationism. Atthe end on the poem there is an apparent attempt to mention that even in 1825 there was awareness that species such asblack swans and platypus were already becoming endangered by the colonial process taking place on the eastern portion ofthe continent.

MMX Paul R. Weaver.

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Rottnest essays:

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About LiveJournal.com

Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21stcentury Australia plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking towrite at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz!

Current Music:The Kangaroos - Philip Glass(Comment on this)

rottnest island - no colonial settlement in 1825

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