Bernard Smith - European Vision and The South Pacific

European Vision and the South Pacific
Author(s): Bernard Smith

Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 13, No. 1/2 (1950), pp. 65-100
Published by: The Warburg Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750143
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EUROPEAN VISION AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC
By Bernard Smith
InEndeavour
1768 the Admiralty sent Lieutenant James Cook in command of the
to the South Pacific to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across
the face of the sun, and to seek the much-discussed Southern Continent. The
Secret Instructions issued to Cook also laid on him other duties.
You are also carefully to observe the nature of the soil and the products
thereof, the beasts and fowls that inhabit or frequent it, the fishes that are
to be found in the rivers or upon the coast and in what plenty; and in
case you find any mines, minerals or valuable stones, you are to bring
home specimens of each, as also such specimens of the seeds of trees, fruits
and grains you may be able to collect, and transmit them to our Secretary,
that we may cause proper examination and experiments to be made of
them.
You are likewise to observe the genius, temper, disposition and number
of the natives....
You are to send by all proper conveyances to the Secretary of the
Royal Society, copies of the observations you shall have made of the
transit of Venus; and you are at the same time to send to our Secretary,
for our information, accounts of your proceedings, and copies of surveys
and drawings you shall have made.'
The Royal Society had promoted the voyage by appealing to George III
who promised f4,ooo and a ship of the navy. The Secret Instructions reveal
the joint responsibility of the Royal Society and the Admiralty for the voyage,
and emphasize its scientific nature.2 They made faithful reporting a daily
duty. From its first years the Society had encouraged travellers to make
accurate reports of everything notable or unusual observed on a journey. In
1665 it published Directionsfor Seamen,Boundfor Far Voyagesto tell them what
the Society stood for, and to enlist their help. The aim of the Society was
... to study Nature rather than Books, and from the Observations, made of
the Phoenomenaand Effects she presents, to compose such a History of Her,
as may hereafter serve to build a Solid and Useful Philosophy upon.3
These Directions were reprinted in 1704 in "An Introductory Discourse,
Containing the whole History of Navigation from its Original to this time,"
Two acknowledgments are due: to the 2 See

Hugh Carrington, Life of Cook,
British Council, which made it possible for London, 1939, P- 51.
me to study during I949 the material dealt 3 Philosophical Transactions,Jan. 8, 1665/6;
with here, and to Mr. Charles Mitchell for R. W. Frantz, The English Traveller and the
his interest and invaluable advice. Movement of Ideas i660o-732, Lincoln, Ne-
1 Public Records Office, Admiralty 2/I132. braska, i934. The two quotations following
Issued July 30, 1768. Publ. Sept. 1928 in have also been drawn from Frantz's excellent
The Naval Miscellany, ed. W. G. Perrin, III, study.
PP. 343-50.
65
66 BERNARD SMITH
in the first volume of Churchill's Collection. Directions Nos. 4 and 8 are
relevant to our discussion:
4. To make Plotts and Draughts of prospects of Coasts, Promontories,

Islands and Ports, marking the Bearings and Distances, as neer as they
can.-
8. To observe and record all extraordinary Meteors,Lightnings, Thunders,
Ignesfatui, Comets, etc. marking still the places and times of their
appearing, continuance, etc.'
In April 1665 a list of instructions which enlarged upon the Directionswas
drawn up by Robert Boyle and published in the Transactionsunder the title
"General Heads for a Natural History of a Countrey, Great or small." These
gave the following advice to land travellers:
. .a. above the ignobler Productionsof the Earth, there must be a careful
account given of the Inhabitantsthemselves, both Nativesand Strangers,that
have been long settled there: And in' particular their Stature, Shape,
Colour, Features, Strength, Agility, Beauty (or want of it), Complexions,
Hair, Dyet, Inclinations, and Customs that seem not due to Education.2
Cook was admirably fitted for his task. He was described in the Transactions
as "a good mathematician, and very expert in his business."3 In his capacity
as navigator and as astronomer he was no doubt aware of the Society's direc-
tions to far voyagers. Certainly he acted throughout life as though he had
read them. Charles Green, an assistant to the Astronomer Royal, was ap-
pointed as one astronomical observer, and Cook as the other.
The transit of Venus and the existence of a Southern Continent, then,
were the primary objectives of the voyage. But to these official objectives were
added the interests of Joseph Banks and his party. Banks was a virtuoso.
Early in life he developed a passion for collecting curiosities, which prompted
his eagerness to visit outlandish places. Both his great-grandfather and his
grandfather had been antiquaries. It was an antiquary who successfully
nominated him for membership of the Royal Society at the age of twenty-
three. He was already a member of the Society of Arts.4 Yet botany was his
first and greatest enthusiasm, and it broadened into an interest in agricultural
pursuits at Revesby. Then archaeologyclaimed his attention. He examined
barrows, commenting on their meaning and origin. His desire for novelty was
insatiable.5 In 1766 he collected plants when he went with his friend Phipps
to Newfoundland.6 In 1767 he wrote concerning local antiquities to Mordach
1 Phil. Trans., vol. cit., pp. I40-2; cf. Frantz, 5 Cf. Peter Pindar's poem, Sir Joset~p?anks
op. cit., p. 22. and the Boiled Fleas: "Sir Joseph ever seeks for
2 Phil.
Trans., April 2, I666, p. I88; cf. something new." (Works of Peter Pindar, Esq.,
Frantz, op. cit., p. 23. London, 1823.)
6 There was a
3 A. Kitson, Life of Cook, London, 1907, suggestion that he should
p. 76. present a paper to the Royal Society on the
4 E. Smith, Life of Banks, London, I911, results of his trip, but nothing came of it.
p. o0. Cf. Smith, op. cit., p. 12.
EUROPEAN VISION AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC 67
MacKenzie in Constantinople who promised.to send any ancient inscriptions
he might come across-"for I have all the desire to encourage your inclina-
tion."'1 Early in i768 Banks is toying with the idea of a visit to Lapland.
So Falconer, his friend, suggested that he might consider the possibility of
"a chain of-similitude" from the German, Dane, Swede, Norwegian, and
Laplander, and from thence eastwards to Kamchatka.2 Falconer thought
there might be a resemblance between Laplander and North American and
remarked: the investigation "cannot be difficult, and may serve as an agree-
able Amusement to one who has visited the Coast of Labrador." But there
were stranger places than Constantinople or Lapland. By April 1768 it was
settled that Banks should sail with Cook. His reply to those who thought he
should perform.the grand tour of Europe was characteristic: "Every block-
head does that, my Grand Tour shall be one round the whole globe."3
Banks and his friends sought above all accurate knowledge of every
curiosity observed. This could be supplied by actual specimens, detailed
verbal descriptions, and faithful drawings. The last were essential for illustrat-
ing and checking verbal descriptions and as a means of disseminating scientific
1 MacKenzie to Banks,
July 15, 1767. from Mr. Banks, Voyager,Monster-Hunter, and
Banks Correspondence (Dawson Turner Tran- Amorosoto Oberea,Queenof Otaheite,London,
scripts),Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.). x773, is more outspoken:
2 Thomas Falconer to Banks, Feb.
15, 1768.
Banks Corr. They searcheach crevicewith a curiouseye,
3 Smith, op. cit., p. 16. The crop of anony- To find exotics-wherethey never lie.
mous poems that appeared after the publica- O shame!werewe, greatGeorge,thy gallantcrew,
And had we--damn it-nothing else to do,
tion of Hawkesworth's Voyagespilloried Banks But turn thy great design to filthyfarce,
as a pseudo-scientist who had gone to the And searchfor wonderson an Indian'sa ... ?
South Seas to enjoy himself. The author of
Otaheite; a Poem, London, I774, is mocking Banks is also caricatured in Peter Pindar's
Banks when he writes: Sir Joseph Banks and the Emperorof Morocco,
Works, op. cit., p. 84. The introductory
While the minutelylearn'dwith petty Care, is significant:
Impale a Beetle, or a Moth insnare,
quatrain
He to the Winds his Canvasdaresdisplay
Where never Barkhad trac'd the dubiousWay; Oneintellect not all thingscomprehends:
The geniusformedfor weeds,and grubs,and flies,
Exploresthe Desert, climbs the ruggedSteep, Can't have foreverat its fingerends
And ransacksall the treasuresof the Deep.
FromvariousManners,and fromvariousShores, What'sdoing every momentin the skies.
With intellectualWealth his Mind he stores;
Sees new Ideas in fair Prospectrise, The poem proceeds to present Sir Joseph as
And ministersnew Wisdomto the Wise. a man of small intelligence, but possessed of
The author of An HistoricEpistlefrom Omiah a voracious interest in everything.
to the Queenof Otaheite:beinghis remarkson the noCertainly the authors of these poems were
friends of Banks, but their verses, like the
English Nation, London, 1775, is certainly letters of his friends, indicate that Banks pos-
thinking of Banks when he writes: sessed weaknesses as a virtuoso. J. Marra, in
Here virtuosidwell who strangelywise, the valuable introduction to his Journalof the
Are learnedin maggotsand can nicknameflies Resolution'sVoyage,London, I775, p. ix, calls
Banks's party "the literati" and attributes
for he mentions their interest in corals and the success of Cook's Second Voyage "to the
sponges soon afterwards (1. 246). And they measures that were taken however secretly
are not true scientists: or artfully conducted to shake off in the be-
As well they teach, with termsabstruseat hand ginning a cumbersome train of numerous
What they know not as what they understand. attendants." A modern historian has agreed
with him: see J. A. Williamson, Cookand the
The author of the obscene poem Epistle Opening of the
Pacific, London, 1946, p. 156.
68 BERNARD SMITH
information. Falconer, for example, was insistent on the need for coloured
drawings of natural phenomena. His advice for th6 projected tour to Lapland
probably influenced Banks in his preparations for the voyage with Cook.
We shall expect . . . a particular account of some of those wonderfull
scenes which are mentioned in the Oration of Linnaeus. You take a
designer with you, and it would be easy to sketch out some of these views.
Travellers in general confine themselves to works of art; and by giving us
only Towns and Churches exhibit nothing but a tedious uniformity. The
appearance of Nature is varied in every climate: an Alpine scene is dif-
ferent from a Derbyshire Landscape; and if your designer would stain his
drawing, it would point out the colour of the soil and verdure, with the
nature of the Rocks, and would enable us to have a full idea of the Country
which no description can possibly give.'
Years afterwardsJoseph Farington recorded in his diary that "accuracy
of drawing seems to be a principal recommendation to Sir Joseph."2 Banks
employed G. D. Ehret3 to make drawings of the plants he had collected on
his trip to Newfoundland in 1766. In 1767 Sydney Parkinson, the son of a
quaker Edinburgh brewer, was painting plants and animals for him.4 He
had been brought to Banks's notice by James Lee, a Hammersmith nursery
man. Banks intended to take him to Lapland,5 but took him instead as
natural-history draughtsman on the voyage with Cook. Stanfield Parkinson,
his brother, who later quarrelled with Banks concerning the publication of
his brother'sjournal and the possession of his brother's drawings, tells us that:
his appointment, for executing such drawings of singular botanical subjects
and curious objects of natural history as might occasionally be met with
on the voyage, was settled at ?80 per annum.6
As topographical artist Banks took with him Alexander Buchan.7 But
Buchan died four days after they had reached Tahiti, and Banks wrote in his
journal:
1 Falconer to
Banks, Feb. 15, 1768. Banks Dixson, "Notes on Australian Artists,"
Corr. Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Australian
2 Farington,
Diary, 4th ed., London, 1923, Historical Society, VII, Sydney, 1921, pp. 100oo-
I, p. 27. Io ; W. Colenso, "Manibus Parksonibus
3 G. D. Ehret, 1708-70; born at Heidel- sacrum:a brief memoir of the first artist who
berg; F.R.S.; illustrated Hortus Cliffortianus, visited New Zealand," New Zealand Institute
1737, Pococke's Description of the East, I743-5, Transactions, 1877, pp. 108-34; J. H. Maiden,
Hughe's Nat. Hist. Barbadoes, 175o, Trew's Sir Joseph Banks, Sydney, 19o09, pp. 62-4.
Plantae Selectae, 1750-73. Ehret was a corre- 5 Cf. Pennant to Banks, Aug. 4, 1767: "I
spondent of Linnaeus. am extremely glad you take Parkinson with
4 Sydney Parkinson exhibited a painting of you." Banks corr.
flowers on silk at the Society of Arts Exhibi- 6 Parkinson, op. cit., p. vi.
tion, 1765, and two more flower pieces and a 7 Very little is known of Buchan. An
drawing in red chalk in 1766. See his Journal epileptic, he was seized with a fit during an
of a Voyage to the South Seas. Embellished with excursion in Tierra del Fuego, when two of
Views by the Author, London, I773. Also W. the company perished with cold.
S. . his loss to me is irretrievable; my airy dreams of entertaining my
friends in England with the scenes I am to see here have vanished. No
account of the figures and dresses of the natives can be satisfactory unless
illustrated by figures; had Providence spared him a month longer, what
an advantage it would have been to my undertaking, but I must submit.1
Thus Banks employed Buchan in order to be able to bring back pictures of

the natives arid scenery of Tahiti. Hawkesworth's note reinforces this view:
He was a sober, diligent, and ingenious young man, and greatly re-
gretted by Mr. Banks; who hoped, by this means, to have gratified his
friends in England with representations of this country and its inhabitants,
which no other person on board could delineate with the same accuracy
and elegance.2
To Banks, then, the drawings to be executed on the voyage fell into two
groups: faithful copies of singular plants and curious objects of natural
history, from Parkinson, and drawings of savages and scenery that would
entertain his friends in England, from Buchan. With the death of Buchan,
Parkinson was called upon to do the work of both men.
Now by 1773 Banks had a reputation among his friends for the way in
which he used drawings-and then engravings-to document observations.
Your precision of measures, and the advantage of able artists, are a
great point; for when we judge by description we form an opinion through
the medium of another man's understanding, who generally compares it
with something else he has seen . . . what an assistance is it then to truth
to have objects delineated by one common measure which speaks univer-
sally to all mankind.3
But this was not such a simple matter. Banks and his friends may have had
the scientist's desire for accurate descriptions and drawings. But many people
in England, fascinated by legends of the South Seas, demanded marvels. His
artists, moreover, coming from Europe, were themselves subject to the same
preconceptions as the European public. Furthermore, the position and re-
quirements of Banks himself were ambivalent. Though a distinguished and
scrupulous amateur scientist, he was also a gentleman making an extraordinary
Grand Tour, and catering for the "men of taste." Parkinson, as we shall see,
while remarkable as a dispassionate draughtsman, found himself torn between
the needs of the scientist and the tastes of the Grand Tourist.
In this article an attempt is made, through the examination of test-cases,
1
Banks, Journal,ed. J. D. Hooker, London, 3 Falconer to Banks, Jan. I6, 1773, Banks
Corr. In the same letter Falconer expresses a
I8 6, P. 79-
John Hawkesworth, An Account of the virtuoso's delight in some pieces from Banks'
Voyagesundertaken. . . for makingDiscoveriesin collection: "I was highly entertained at
the SouthernHemisphere,London, I773, II, Oxford with a sight of curiosities you sent
p. 93- (Quoted hereafter as Hawkesworth's from Otaheite and New Zealand."
Voyages.)
70 BERNARD SMITH
to determine to what extent and in what conditions artists were successful or
not successfulin meeting the requirements of the Rdyal Society when depicting
natural objects, scenery and natives; and secondly, to show how certain of
the predispositions with which artists came to the South Seas in Banks's time
were later changed with consequent effects on their vision of what they aimed
to represent. We shall have to draw a distinction between the vision of men
who came to the South Pacific as explorers and that of those who settled there.
An appreciation of the position and ideas of the latter may, perhaps, enable
us to make some contribution to the study of the beginnings of European art
in Australia.
Recordsof NaturalHistory
Whenever they were on a new coast Banks, Solander1 and Parkinson
collected plants. Solander described them in his notebooks and classified
them. The great mass of new material created problems of nomenclature for
him if we are to judge by the frequency with which he crosses out both the
specific and generic names first given to many new plants.2 Described and
classified by Solander a new plant was then sketched by Parkinson sufficiently
to record the shape, size, coloration and principal parts of the foliage and
flower. It was then preserved. After returning to England Solander wrote
up a full description and Banks employed several artists to make finished
drawings from Parkinson's sketches. These drawings were later engraved
under Banks's personal supervision. Parkinson made 675 sketches'during the
voyage.3 The process of recording may be followed in the case of a common
Australian eucalyptus.
During their voyage along the Australian coast Solander and Banks col-
lected some leaves of a tree which the former described and named Metrosideros
salicifoliaand later Metrosiderosobliqua.4 Parkinson made his sketch (P1. i6a).
Eight years later Frederick Nodder made the finished drawing for Banks
(P1. I6b), basing the disposition of the leaves and flower on Parkinson'ssketch,
the notes on the back of which gave hints for colouring, viz.: "the stamina
white, receptacles pale green the stalks the same the leaves a pale blue green
with a yellowish nerve in the middle." Banks then had an engraving made
from Nodder's drawing (Pl. I6c). These drawings may be compared with
an original type specimen brought home by Banks preserved in the British
Museum (Natural History) (P1. I6d). Although the disposition of the foliage
has been disturbed since Parkinson's time it is evident that the essential
botanical facts have been recorded faithfully from specimen to published
engraving.
1 Daniel Carl Swedish
Solander, 1736-82, drawings of Plants and Animals made duringCapt.
natural-historian, lived and studied with J. Cook's first voyage, 1768-71; with finished
Linnaeus. Arrived in Eng. 1760. Engaged by drawings by T. Burgis, J. Cleveley, Jas. Miller,
Banks at ?4oo per annum as his botanist for J. F. Miller and F. P. Nodder; madefrom incom-
the voyage, and in 1771 established in his plete sketches. I9 Vols. British Museum
home as his secretary and librarian. (Natural History).
2 Solander MSS., British Museum (Natural 4 Solander MSS., p. 563. It is now called
History). Eucalyptus Terminalus.
3
Sydney Parkinson, Original water-colour
16
i!i$ii!Bii!!!!! !•;i;
*a•
--F'=-=:
Ecaypus
a--ydeyPakinon erinli,
EcalptusTerinaisb-F.
a-SyneyParinso, EucalyptusTerminalis,Finished
Nodder, Eucalyptus Finished Draw-
?_=__~~
First Sketch, 1770 (p. 70) ing, 1778 (p. o
:=_-;i -:--.;?:::
F Terminals, Speimn coeed inrw

Iuaqtus
ct--Euaydnypakno
Temnai, n r., cai. 178o. (p.er7oEucalyptus
1177? onech Cook' First Voyge Brit. Mus. (Nat.
~ -~-:
SydneParinon Plants of Austalia III,:-i
a-cl~;--:rom~ f.- 139: Hit. (p. 7o)~
Bypriso fth rts uem NtrlHsoy
c-Eucalyptus Terminalis, Engr., ca. 1780 (p. 70) d-Eucalyptus Terminalis,Specimnencollected in

1770 on Cook's First Voyage, Brit. Mus. (Nat.
a-c-Fromn Sydney Parkinson, Plants of Australia,III, f. 139 Hist.) (p. 70)
By permissionof the British Museum (Natural History)
17
a-Coast View of Poverty Bay, engr. after Sydney Parkinson. From Parkinson, Journal, I1773,
Pl. XIV (p. 71)
b-Parkinson, Village at Mercury Bay, Drawing, i769. c-Village at Mercury Bay, Engraving. From Hawkes-
Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 23920, f. 43 72) worth, Voyages,1773, II (p. 72)
(P.
Na-
.d-Parkinson,
tural Grotto in New

Zealand, Drawing,
1769. Brit.
Mus.,
Add. MS. 23920,
Recordsof Scenery:Documentary, and ExoticLandscape
Picturesque,
An essential part of Cook's work was to make "plots and draughts of
prospects of coasts." He applied the same care to the description of coasts as
Solander did to the description of plants. On Sunday, October 8, 1769, the
coast of New Zealand came into view for the first time, and Cook entered a
note in his journal:
The land on the Sea Coast is high, with Steep clitts; and back inland
are very high Mountains. The face of the Country is of a hilly surface,
and appears to be cloathed with wood and Verdure.'
Parkinson made a drawing of the coast described by Cook (P1. I 7a). It is
as impersonal in its topographical fidelity as is Cook's description. By apply-
ing a somewhat similar technique a new coast could be documented in much
the same manner as a new plant. The visual description acted as a check on
the verbal description. Coastal views, of this kind, known among seamen as
"perspectives," were frequently engraved in accounts of voyages of discovery.
They were a practical aid to navigation, and had to be unambiguous. The
artists were thus able to assist the botanists and hydrographers by producing
conventionalized drawings which recorded facts useful to the two sciences,
and of value to seamen.2 They had less appeal, however, to the general
public.3 It was to be expected that Banks would not always look at the land-
scape with the analytical eye of a botanist, but sometimes with the eye of a
grand-tourist.4 Sixteen days after Cook wrote his brief impersonal description
1
Captain Cook's Journal during his First not refrain from mentioning the great assist-
VoyageRound the World, made in H.M. Bark ance that these engravings were to the expedi-
Endeavour,ed. W. J. L. Wharton, London, tion on several occasions from their fidelity
1893, p. 129. to nature. On the first approach to Australia,
2On his Journal of the Second Voyage in the neighbourhood of King George's
Cook wrote: "I know not what plates Mr. Sound, during a heavy gale, they doubted
Forster may have got engraved of Natural whether they could make the harbour, but
History that will come into my Books, nor do as they approached the coast they so readily
I Know of any that will be of use to it, but recognized the entrance by the aid of the
the Spruce Tree and Tea Plant and Scurvy illustration that they sailed straight in without
Grass: the Flax Plant is engraved but whether hesitation instead of being beaten about at
the publishing of this in my Journal will sea."
be of any use to seamen I shall not deter- 3
By 1794 Banks had engraved 1,500 plates
mine." (Cook to Banks, July Io, 1776; Banks of natural history specimens. But according
Corr.) The coastal views, too, had a direct to Joseph Farington, who received his infor-
practical use. Several of Westall's views were mation from Hamilton through Dryander,
published in the Atlas to. Flinder's A Voyage Banks's librarian, "It is not likely to be pub-
to TerraAustralis,London, 8 4. In this form lished (i.e. the engravings) as was expected.
they were of real value to later navigators. Some think Sir Joseph does not choose to
Witness the testimony of Captain P. P. King encounter the opinion of the world on the
in his "Account of the Voyage of the Adven- merits of it, and, indeed, it is probable ill-
ture and Beagle" (1826-36) given as a lecture disposed critics would not be wanting."
.to the Royal Geographical Society and re- Diary, ed. cit., I, p. 61.
4 On first
ported by Westall's son, who was present, in seeing Maori fortifications he
a holograph letter to the President of the notes: ". . . most are of the opinion that it
Royal Colonial Institute, now in the posses- must be a park of deer, or a field of sheep or
sion of the Royal Empire Society: "He could oxen." (Journal,ed. cit., p. 183.) Anthills in
72 BERNARD SMITH
of Poverty Bay, Banks, on one of his botanical rambles, came upon a natural
grottoin Tolaga Bay. He describedit in hisJournal:
. . . we saw an extraordinary natural curiosity. In pursuing a valley
bounded on each side by steep hills we suddenly saw a most noble arch
or cavern through the face of a rock leading directly to the sea, so that
throughit we had not only a view of the bay and hills on either side, but
an opportunity of imagining a ship or any other grand object opposite to
-it. It was certainlythe most magnificentsurpriseI have ever met with;
so much is pure nature superiorto art in these cases. I have seen such
places made by art, where from an inland view you were led throughan
arch 6 ft. wide and 7 ft. high, to a prospectof the sea, but here was an
arch 25 yardsin length, 9 in breadth,and at least 15 in height.'
In this descriptionBanksmightsatisfythe exactingrequirementsthat a friend
like Falconermight demand, but the languageis that of a young gentleman
of taste vindicatinghis decisionto go south with Cook. Banks'sdescriptionis
composedcarefullylike a painting. In the foreground,the grotto, the sea
behind,thehills on eitherside, and, to give a centreto the view, the imaginary
ship., Cook, however,was not excited about a rock with a hole in it. He
did not mentionthe grotto until the day they left the Bay.
Close to the N. End of this Island, at the Entranceinto the Bay, are
two high rocks;one is high and roundlike a Corn Stack,but the other is
long with holes thro' it like the Archesof a Bridge.3
Here was a scene that would entertainBanks'sfriends: Parkinsonmade a
washdrawingof it (P1.17d), composingaccordingto a picturesqueformula.
An ellipticalspaceis chosento harmonizewith the shapeof the grotto'smouth,
while the framingtrees,the windingpath, and the imaginaryboat mentioned
by Banks are used as the pictorial elements of the formula. On May 12, 1769,
less than three weeks later, they came upon a similar curiosity. A fortified
Maori village had been built upon a rock surroundedby sea at high water,
Bankswrote in his journal:4
What made it most truly romanticis that much the greaterpart of it
was hollowed out into an arch, which quite penetratedthroughit.
Parkinson'ssketch of this (P1. I7b) was engraved for Hawkesworth. The
engraverhas increasedthe scale of the sketchby reducingthe size of the man
standing at the left (PL. 7c). And by decreasing the size of the native craft,
by adding the long boat and native canoe with the addition of birds, clouds
and distant mounitains,the engraverhas investedthe scene with a grandeur
Australiaremindedhim of Druidmonuments English cognoscenti,cf. E. W. Manwaring,
(ibid.,p. 283). Italian Landscapein I8th CenturyEngland,New
1 Ibid.,p. 129. Dr.J. C. Beagleholeinforms York, 1925, p. 128.
me that the hole is, in fact, much smaller. 3 Cook,
Journil, ed. cit., p. 143.
2On the taste for grottoes among the 4Banks, Journal,ed. cit., p. 198.
the original drawing does not possess. In his note for the day Cook does not
mention the natural arch, merely commenting that the rocks are "more fit
for Birds to inhabit than men."1
Thus it was possible to adopt two attitudes to new landscapes: they could
be documented faithfully or composed picturesquely. And Parkinson never
quite resolved the claims of the two points of view. It was William Hodges,
landscape painter on Cook's Second Voyage, who succeeded in combining
the documentary with the picturesque without sacrificing the requirements
of either.
Hodges, a pupil of Richard Wilson, found his solution, not in the creation
of ideal landscapes, but in documenting natural wonders which created an
emotional interest akin to the emotions aroused by the supernatural. We
have noted that the Royal Society sought records of "all extraordinary
Meteors,Lightnings, Thunders, Ignesfatui, Comets,- etc." These were the
subjects that interested Hodges beyond all others. He sought nature in her
extraordinary moods, and found that documentary precision and picturesque
methods of composing could be joined wonderfully in the portrayal of marine
mirabilia.2 In the 'Islands of South Georgia' (P1. I8a) he has kept within the
conventions of the coastal view found to be so useful to navigators. But he
has transformed the dull convention into a dramatic and compelling state-
ment. It is not topography but the dramatic effect of light upon water and
mountains of ice which interests Hodges. In his pen and wash drawing 'The
Resolutionand Adventure,4th Jan I773, Taking in Ice for Water'3 the current
interest in grottoes is joined with a new interest in the effect of light on ice.
Even in a drawing to be used as a record of the Resolutiontaking in ice it is
the effect of the light which really absorbs him. In 'Ice Islands' (P1. I8b)
this interest in light on ice overrides all others, blurring and modifying the
contours, uniting ice, water, and sky in one shimmering texture, and reducing
the grotto, which an earlier artist such as Parkinson might have emphasized,
to a minor pictorial component.
What we find of real interest in Hodges' antarctic wash drawings is his
obvious difficulty in applying the picturesque or heroic landscape formulae,
that he had learnt from his master, to subject-matter that did not lend itself
easily to classical composition. Here were no foreground bowers, ruins,
steeples uniting distant prospects, or even real grottoes. Ice, water, atmosphere
and light were now the components of the seascape. Yet the picturesque
vision could be taken below the Antarctic circle, and, according to Forster,
proved a source of comfort in a strange world.
The shapes of these large frozen masses, were frequently singularly
ruinous, and so far picturesque enough; among them we passed one of
1
Cook, Journal, ed. cit., p. Wales and Bayley, The Original Astronomical
2 154-
Cf. E. Wind, "The Revolution of History Observationsmadein thecourseof a Voyagetowards
Painting," Journal of the WarburgInstitute,II,the SouthPoles and Roundthe World,London,
1938, p. 117. 1777, P. 346.
This characteristic in Hodges can be 3 In the Australian Museum,
Sydney; re-
assessed from the engraving of waterspouts produced in T. Iredale, "Captain Cook's
from a drawing of his, which appears opposite Artists," Australian Museum Magazine, II,
the verbal description of the phenomenon in Sydney, 1925, p. 225.
74 BERNARD SMITH
great size, with a hollow in the middle, resembling a grotto or cavern,
which was pierced through, and admitted light from the other side. Some
had the appearance of a spire or steeple; and many others gave full scope
to our imagination, which compared them to several known objects, by
that means attempting to overcome the tediousness of our cruize.1
In Hodges' 'Ice Islands' the classical formula which he learnt in Wilson's
studio is giving way before a "naturalistic" vision, two years before the birth
of Turner, three years before the birth of Constable. When he returned to
England, and later when he visited India, Hodges showed little interest in
portraying the effect of light upon surfaces. It was the nature of the antarctic
seas that had presented him so directly with this pictorial problem.2
The Inhabitants:The NobleSavage

Making faithful pictorial records of the native peoples of the Pacific was
even more difficult than an accurate record of landscape. Many held strong
preconceptions about the nature of the people of the South Seas, just as
Alexander Dalrymple held strong opinions about the, Southern Continent
though he had never seen it. By 1769 there had accumulated a formidable
body of evidence that the natives of Patagonia or Tierra del Fuego-the exact
location was a little vague-were giants.3 The Captains Harrington and
Carmen came back in 1704 with stories of the giants.4 Byrbn, in 1764, only
four years before Cook set out on his First Voyage, corroborated their story.5
Hawkesworth recounts his meeting with the Tierra del Fuegans:
I drew up my people upon the beach, with my officers at their head,
and gave orders that none of them should move from that station, till I
should either call or beckon to them. I then went forward alone, towards
the Indians, but perceiving that they retired as I advanced, I made signs
that one of them should come near: as it happened my signals were under-
stood, and one of them, who afterwards appeared to be a Chief, came
towards me: he was of a gigantic stature, and seemed to realize the tales
1J. G. H. Forster, A VoyageRound the World, into its interstices. We could likewise fre-
London, 1777, I, p. 117. quently observe in great islands of ice, dif-
2 The effect of light on the ice seems to have ferent shades or casts of white, lying above
been of some interest to the voyagers: "We each other in strata of six inches or one foot
were certain of meeting with ice in any high." (Forster, op. cit., I, p. ioi.)
quarter where we perceived a strong reflec- 3 A summary of the evidence is given in
tion of white on the skirts of the sky near the Hawkesworth's Voyages, op. cit., I, ix-xvii,
horizon. However, the ice is not always and in P. P. King, Narrative of the Survey-
entirely white, but often tinged, especially ing Voyagesof His Majesty's Ships Adventureand
near the surface of the sea, with a most beauti- Beagle, London, 1839, PP- 96-Io2.
ful sapphirine or rather berylline blue, evi- 4 Hawkesworth, op. cit., I, p. xiv.
dently reflected from the water; this blue 5John Byron, I723-86, second son of the
colour sometimes appeared twenty or thirty fourth Lord Byron. In I764 he was sent by
feet above the surface, and was probably the Admiralty in command of the Dolphin
there owing to some particles of sea-water on a secret voyage of discovery in the South
which had been dashed against the mass in Seas. An account of the voyage is given in
tempestuous weather, and had penetrated Vol. I of Hawkesworth's Voyages.
18
,
,
So,,-,
~0
By permission of the A~stslalianMuseum, Sydney
a--William Hodges, The Iwg-* Pl-

--wa
Islands of South Georgia, Wash Drawing, 1774-, Australian Museum,
Sydney (p. 73)
-0
- - ~~
By permission of theAustralian Museum, Sydney

b-William Hodges, Ihe IslandsofSuhG Wash
rgaDrawing, Australian
174 73
Museum,Syny(
iMk
16 .
,?
19
VxV
~~~P ssB~~..... .~i~i

. ..
r%? 3_
b-. ucanPatkiveonHutivDrawingrr d768, ego, -Bawitolo1768EngitavinM ofativd HutFro
Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 23920, f.8(P757) Hawkesworth, Voyages, 1773, 11,P1. I (P- 77)
of monsters in a human shape: he had the skin of some wild beast thrown
over his shoulders, as a Scotch highlander wears his plaid, and was painted
so as to make the most hideous appearance I ever beheld.... I did not
measure him, but if I may judge of his height by the proportion of his
stature to my own, it could not be much less than seven feet. When this
frightful Colossus came up, we muttered something to each other as saluta-
tion, and I then walked with him towards his companions, to whom, as I
advanced, I made signs that they should sit down, and they all readily
complied: there were among them many women, who seemed to be
proportionally large; a few of the men were less than the Chief who came
forward to meet me. . . . Having looked around upon these enormous
goblins with no small astonishment, and with some difficulty made those
who were still galloping up sit down with the rest, I took out a quantity
of yellow and white beads, which I distributed among them, and which
they received with strong expressions of pleasure.1
The incident is illustrated in Hawkesworth (P1. i19d). Byron had no
artist with him and the engraving was composed afterwards from the records.
The lofty mountains and volcanic smoke have been added to give local colour.
This kind of picture is neither documentation based on the personal visual
experience of the artist, nor visual reportage in which observed facts are
heightened asthetically by the use of artistic conventions; it is illustration
based solely on the verbal record, giving rise to "opinion through the medium
of another man's understanding." Banks's artists were taken expressly to get
closer to the facts.
The investigations made by Banks, Cook, and the drawings of Buchan
and Parkinson were calculated to check the popular belief in giants in South
America. Banks is quite explicit on the question of size. It was his first real
test as an accurate observer:
The men are largely built, but very clumsy, the height being from
five feet eight inches to five feet ten inches, and all very much the same
size. The women are much smaller, seldom exceeding five feet.2
Both his artists drew the people (P1. I19a,b). In both the height of the people
is normal. Buchan preserves a documentary realism. Parkinson's drawing
is a rather inept picturesque composition. Cook stated that the natives were
"something above the Middle size."'3 Here, then, was a real attempt "to have
objects delineated by one common measure." The clear verbal reports of
Banks and Cook settled the question of the existence of giants in Patagonia.
But Parkinson's drawing was never published, and Buchan's drawing was
transformed by the engravers and used to assist the opinion that they were
noble savages.
This was not the opinion of the voyagers. The Tierra del Fuegans, Cook
wrote, "are perhaps as Miserable a sett of People as are this day upon Earth."4
Banks agreed substantially with Cook that "their clothes are nothing more
1 I, pp. 27-9. 3 Cook, Journal, ed. cit., p. 37.
2 Ibid.,
Banks, Journal, ed. cit., p. 58. 4 Ibid., p. 38.
76 BERNARD SMITH
than the cloak of a guanou skin,"' there was no distinction between the dress
of men and women, the houses were bad, the diet meagre, consisting entirely
of shell-fish. But these observations were not published in their original form.
John Hawkesworth was commissioned by the Admiralty to edit the official
account of the journals of Byron, Wallis, Carteret and Cook. In his hands
the appearance and nature of the Tierra del Fuegans underwent subtle modi-
fication.2 Significantly he does not quote Cook's statement, and such an
interpolation as "although they are content to be naked, they are very
ambitious to be fine"3 lacks authority from either Banks or Cook. One
passage in particular reveals how the eye-witness account could be modified
by Hawkesworth's own ideas about the nature of savage life in general.
What bodily pain they might suffer from the severities of their winter
we could not know; but it is certain, that they suffered nothing from the
want of innumerable articles which we consider, not as the luxuries and
conveniences only, but the necessaries of life: as their desires are few, they
probably enjoy them all; and how much they may be gainers by an
exemption from the care, labour and solicitude, which arise from a
perpetual and unsuccessful effort to gratify that infinite variety of desires
which the refinements of artificial life have produced among us, is not
very easy to determine: possibly this may counterbalance all the real dis-
advantages of their situation in comparison with ours, and make the scales
by which good and evil are distributed to man, hang even between us.4
By these additions Hawkesworth was able to convey impressions about
the savage nobility of the Tierra del Fuegans completely opposed to Cooks'
impressions and considerably at variance with those of Banks. The direct
inspiration of the passage quoted above seems to have been Fendlon's Tl16-
maque,which Hawkesworth had translated into English four years before he
received the commission for the Voyages.5 It was certain, according to
Hawkesworth, that the natives of Tierra del Fuego did not suffer from the
lack of things we should consider necessities, and because they had few desires
they probably enjoyed all of them. This is paralleled in Fene1on's ideal
kingdom of Betique.
Il y a plusieurs mines d'or et d'argent dans ce beau pays; mais les
habitants, simples et heureux dans leur simplicitY, ne daignent pas seule-
ment compter l'or et l'argent parmi leurs richesses; ils n'estiment que ce
qui sert veritablement aux besoins de l'homme.6
1
Banks, Journal, ed. cit., p. 58. time of writing the Voyagesfor he mentions it
2For a consideration of Hawkesworth's when making a comparison between Tahitian
modifications of the journals of Banks and women and the women of antiquity (II,
Cook see H. N. Fairchild, The Noble Savage, p. i2o), G. Chinard has shown that Fendlon
New York, 1928, p. io8 iff. himself formed his ideal people of Bdtique by
3 Hawkesworth, op. cit., II, p. 55.- joining classical legend with the reports of the
4 Ibid., II, p. 59. Jesuit missionaries in America (L'Amdrique et
5 The Adventures of Telemachus, trans. le Rdve Exotique, Paris, 1934, pp. 216-7).
Hawkesworth, London, 1769. F'n6lon's book 6 F. de Salignac de la Mothe Fendelon,Adven-
was certainly in Hawkesworth's mind at the tures de Tdllmaque, Paris, ed. of x866, p. 142.
And the life of the Tierra del Fuegans causes Hawkesworth to ask his readers
whether perhaps, living exempted from "care, labour and solicitude," they
may not be better off than we are. This is the same sort of question that the
inhabitants of Betiqueask Adoam:
Peut-on nommer bien un superflu qui ne sert qu'a rendre les hommes
mauvais? Les hommes de ces pays sont-ils plus sains et plus robustes que
nous? vivent-ils plus longtemps? sont-ils plus unis entre eux? menent-ils
une vie plus libre, plus tranquille, plus gaie? Au contraire, ils doivent
etre jaloux les uns des autres, ronges par une liche et noire envie, toujours
agites par l'ambition, par la crainte, par l'avarice, incapables des plaisirs
purs et simples, puisqu'ils sont esclaves de tant de fausses necessites dont
ils font dependre tout leur bonheur.1
A somewhat similar distortion occurred in the publication of the visual
records. Banks visited one of the villages of the natives and left an account
of one of their huts:
A hut consisted of a few poles set up and meeting together at the top
in a conical figure, and covered on the weather side with a few boughs and
a little grass; on the lee-side about one-eighth part of the circle was left
open, and against this opening a fire was made .... For drinking, I saw
in a corner of one of their huts a bladder of some beast full of water .
.2.
Buchan, we have seen, made a careful drawing of the hut which answers
closely to Banks's description (P1. i9b). Cipriani made use of this drawing
when he designed Plate No. I in the Voyages,engraved by Bartolozzi (P1. 19c).
To the original six figures in Buchan's sketch Cipriani has added four more.
The figure of the boy at the right is one of Cipriani's many amorini,now in
an unusual setting. It is identical in pose with one on the extreme right of
Cipriani's 'Drawing for a mythological frieze' in the Victoria and Albert
Museum.3 His older companion, another addition to the sketch, is a typical
classicistic figure.4
Cipriani's addition of a landscape to Buchan's matter-of-fact drawing is
a decisive factor in the transformation of impersonal documentation into a
form of reportage vitiated by current fictions about the nature of savages.
For the picturesque setting-the Claudian tree in the foreground, Salvator's
rocks and knotty branches, the mountainous background-represents the
state of untamed nature as Rousseau5 and Fendlon conceived it. Once that
was introduced the reproductive artist inevitably tended to idealize and en-
noble the savage inhabiting it.
It was, however, possible to depict people in the precise documentary
I Ibid, p. 144.
why he should do so is not clear. He has not
2Banks, Journal,ed. cit., p. 56. included a dog which appears in Buchan's
a Print Room, Victoria and Albert sketch.
Museum, Cipriani P. D. i68. 3436-78. 5 Cf. "A Dissertation on the Origin and
4 Cipriani may have used a Tobias and the Foundation of Inequality among Mankind,"
Angel motif for the two added figures. But Works(trans.), London, I773-4, VII, p. 196 ff.
78 BERNARD SMITH
manner used to record the forms of plants. Parkinson's 'Portrait of a New
Zealand Man,' for example (P1. 20a), records tattoo-marks and personal
adornments with an accuracy calculated to satisfy scientific ethnographers as
well as his botanical drawings satisfied botanists. This is the only drawing
reproduced in Hawkesworth in which a native features prominently that was
not subjected to some kind of idealizing by the engravers (P1. 20b), and it is
significant to note that it is the only illustration in which a native was not
shown in a landscape setting.
Hawkesworth's Voyageswas criticized on many counts after its publication,
but there appears to have been only one contemporary reviewer who pointed
to the weakness of the engravings in the Voyagesas accurate descriptions of the
natives of the South Seas. This occurs in a review of Parkinson's Voyageto
the SouthSeas.
He collected, not from books and relations of others, but from his own
attentive observations and judicious remarks. . . . But by far the most
valuable part of his labours, and what was never before executed with
equal judgement and fidelity, is that characteristic distinction observable
in the portraits of the chiefs, their dresses and ornaments, which marks
their originality, and brings them home to the view of the attentive
observer, with all their distinctive features most strongly expressed. Who
can look upon the two New Hollanders advancing to combat without being
struck with their ferocity? Or who, at the same time, can view the
Otaheitan lad, without being affected by the contrast?-It were needless
to enlarge upon the accuracy of the drawings which embellish and illus-
trate the work, as they are invariably acknowledged to be the general
resemblance of whatever they are intended to represent.
These are the important objects that give the work before us, so far
as respects the Journals of S. Parkinson, a superiority over those of con-
temporary voyages, who, being intent on gaining the characters of fine
writers and elegant artists, have departed from the simplicity of Nature to
give scope to the decorations of Art.'
There can be no doubt that the reference to "contemporary voyages" is
intended for Hawkesworth's Voyages. The important point is that none of
the natives prominently depicted in Parkinson's book is set in a landscape.
Parkinson'sJournal,however, though published before Hawkesworth's Voyages,
did not reach the public until I784. After a few copies had appeared the
further issue was stopped by an injunction in Chancery, on the grounds of
the infringement of Hawkesworth's rights and the use of material belonging
to Banks. Dr. Fothergill, a friend of both Banks and Parkinson, bought up
the remainder, which appeared as the reissue of 1784. The Voyages,therefore,
a creation in great measure of a virtuoso, a good journalist, and of classicizing
engravers, was the main source of information on Cook's First Voyage. For
1 Gentleman's Hawkesworth to suppress Parkinson's book
Magazine, Jan. 1785, p. 52.
Parkinson's Voyage was published on July 6, the Gentleman's Magazine did not review it
1773. This is a review of the reissue of 1784. when it first appeared; for the explanation see
Because of the campaign by Banks and Gent. Mag., Aug. 1784, p. 603.
20
..........
a-Parkinson, Drawing, 769, h-Engraving from Hawkes- c-Engraving from Atlas to

Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 23920, worth, Voyages, 1773,11 (p. 78) Cook's Third Voyage, 1785,
f-154 (P 78)7(p 79)
d-The Landing at Tanna, engr. Sherwin after Hodges. From Cook, VoyageTowards the South
Pole, 1777,II (p. 79)
e-The Landing at engr. Sherwin after Hodges. From Cook, Voyage Towards
Maiddleborough,
the SouthPole, 1777, II (p. 8o)
months following its publication the London newspapers published extracts
from it.
Neither Banks nor Cook saw the Tierra del Fuegans as noble savages
though Hawkesworth did. The Tahitians were a different proposition. Banks
was more disposed than Cook to take a kindly view of them.' Their customs
suggested parallels with antiquity. They sang in praise of their visitors like
ancient Greeks, "these gentlemen, like Homer of old, must be poets as well as
musicians."2 Parkinson observed that they were "in constitution what the
ancient Britons were before civilisation."'3 The chieftains became senti-
mentalized Greek heroes for the voyagers, four of them obtaining classical
pseudonyms until their native names were mastered. Hercules was named
for his great strength, Ajax for his grim countenance, Epicurus for his appetite,
Lycurgus for his justice in locating and returning a snuff-box stolen from
Banks.4 And before Cook's arrival the Tahitians had reminded Bougainville
of Greek gods:
I never saw men better made, and whose limbs were more propor-
tionate: in order to paint a Hercules or a Mars, one could no where find
such beautiful models.5
A young girl came aboard who prompted an obvious comparison:
the girl carelessly dropt a cloth, which covered her, and appeared to
allS..beholders, such as Venus showed herself to the Phrygian shepherd,
having indeed the celestial form of that goddess.6
Justified by such observations on the spot, the illustrators of south-sea voyages

were quick to seize upon classical parallels. In the 'Landing at Tanna'
(P1. 2od), painted by Hodges and engraved by J. K. Sherwin, the figure to
the extreme left, for example, adopts the pose of a Hercules resting after his
labours, while the old man on the beach wearing a white turban gesticulates
with outstretched palms in the manner of a Hercules slaying the Hydra.7
The close similarity of the Hawaiian war helmet and the classical Greek
helmet made it possible for Sherwin-illustrating the official account of Cook's
Third Voyage-to present Webber's portrait of an Hawaiian chieftain with
the proud impersonal bearing and idealized features of early classical sculp-
ture (P1. 20oc).8
Alternatively, engravers could present Polynesians as cultivated Europeans.
I
See Fairchild, op. cit., p. io8. 4 Banks, Journal, ed. cit., p. 79; Cook,
2Banks, Journal, ed. cit., p. 99. Journal, ed. cit., p. 62.
3 Parkinson, op. cit., p. 23. Cf. Bougain- 5s Bougainville, op. cit., p. 249.
ville's remarks on tattooing: "... this custom Ibid., p. 218.
of painting always to be found among nations SCf. also classicized poses in 'The Landing
who bordered on a state of nature. Caesar at Erramanga' (P1. 25e).
found the practice, going on in England." 8 See C. Mitchell, "Zoffany's Death of
(Lewis de Bougainville, A VoyageRound the Cook," Burlington Magazine, March, 1944,
World, trans. J. R. Forster, London, I772, p. 56 f
p. 25I.)
6
80 BERNARD SMITH
The higher ranks of Tahitian society were found to possess many of the quali-
ties of the English aristocracy. Banks tells of a Tahitian princess who stretched
out her hand to receive a present of beads with all the grace of a Princess
Royal of Britain.' Tahitians of superior rank who spent most of their time
under shelter were found to be seldom browner than "that kind of brunette
which many in Europe prefer to the finest red and white."'2 The women
could blush "very manifestly" and their skin was "infinitely smoother" than
anything Banks had met with in Europe.3 Beards were always kept clean and
neat and worn in different fashions. Both men and women removed the hair
from under their armpits, and questioned the cleanliness of those who did not
do likewise. Lycurgus learnt to hold a knife and fork "more handily than a
Frenchman could learn to do in years."'4 And when Captain Furneaux
brought Omai, merely a lad of the middling classes, to London, he became
the lion of English society because of his ingenuous charm and graceful
manner.5 Thus it is not surprising that when Sherwin engraved Hodges'
painting of 'The Landing at Middleborough, one of the Friendly Islands'
(P1. 20e), he should endow the native women with elaborate coiffures, elegant
gestures, and rich diaphonous drapery worn in the sentimentally erotic
manner of the ladies of Angelica Kauffmann.
Reynolds's full-length portrait of Omai6 at Castle Howard (P1. 22a),
contrasting with Nathaniel Dance's portrait of him engraved in 1774 (P1.22b),
draws on every device to represent his nobility. When Dance showed Omai
carrying a Tahitian head-dress in the left hand, and a fan and native bag in
the right, he was only following a formula which had been used for the illus-
tration of savages throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries., It is
a faithful piece of documentation relying on its curiosity to attract the public.
In Reynolds's portrait, however, the documentary particularity has disap-
peared. Apart from some slight tattooing on the hands there is no sign of a
barbaric origin. The simple head-dress of the Tahitian recorded in Parkin-
son's sketches has become something like an Arabian turban. An ideal exotic
landscape elevates Omai's character, while the bare feet, the flowing robe and
the classic gesture (not unlike Reynolds's adaptation of the Belvedere Apollo
in his earlier portrait of Keppel), all suggest his affinities with antiquity. At
1 Banks, Journal, ed. cit., p. I 19. him, to which he was infinitely more sensitive
2 Ibid., p. 128. than presents." (Bougainville, op. cit., p.
3 Ibid., loc. cit. 263.)
4 Ibid., pp. 8o-i. SSee e.g. 'An Inhabitant of Angola' (p. 9)
5 Cf The Early Diary of FrancisBurney,ed. and 'A Man and Woman at the Cape of Good
A. R. Ellis, London, 1889, I, p. 311. Hope' (p. 18) in SomeTravelsintoDiversParts
6 On Omai see C. B. Tinker, Nature'sSimple of Africa and Asia the Great, London, 1677;
Plan, Princeton, 1922, pp. 75-89; H. N. Fair- 'The Habit of the Topayers,' A Collectionof
child, op. cit., pp. 7I-4, 483-4; T. B. Clark, Voyagesand Travels, London, 1744, II, p. 122;
Omai, First PolynesianAmbassadorto England, Hodges' 'Family in Dusky Bay, New Zea-
San Francisco, I941. Bougainville also re- land,' in Cook, A VoyageTowardsthe South
turned with a Tahitian, Oatourou, who did Pole and Round the World, I772-5, London,
not, however, achieve the success in Paris of 1777, p. 63; and 'A Family of New South
Omai in London. "He was particularly at- Wales' (P1. 22c) in J. Hunter, An Historical
tached to the Duchess of Choiseul, who has Journal of the Transactionsat Port Jackson,
loaded him with favours, and especially London, 1793, opp. p. 414.
shewed marks of concern and friendship to
bottom, this is not so much a portrait of a noble savage as that of a self-
confident, civilized patrician.1
The ArcadianSetting
The scenery of Tahiti suggested both classical and Biblical parallels.
Bougainville stayed at the island for ten days in April 1769 and wrote a
description which has affected the imagination of Europeans ever since. "One
would think himself," he wrote, "in the Elysian fields."'2 The country was so
rich, the air so salubrious, that the people attained happy old age without
feeling any of its inconveniences. Men suffering from scurvy regained their
strength after spending one night on the island. "Everyone gathers fruits from
the first tree he meets with, or takes some in any house into which he enters."'3
Here indeed was a terrestrial Paradise.
I have often, in company with one or two of our people been out
walking in the interior parts of the isle. I thought I was transported into
the garden of Eden; we crossed a covered with fine fruit-trees, and
intersected by little rivulets, which turf,
kept up a pleasant coolness in the air,
without any of those inconveniences which humidity occasions. We found
companies of men and women sitting under the shade of their fruit-trees
... everywhere we found hospitality, ease, innocent joy, and every appear-
ance of happiness amongst them.4
The land was like Paradise, and the people living in a state of innocence
enjoyed its bounty; this is the main theme of Bougainville's report. It was
like Eden before the Fall of man. This state of innocent joy is admirably
expressed in an incident which occurred when Bougainville was stopped one
day, when on the way to his boat after visiting the chief, by an islander of
fine figure,
who lying under a tree, invited us to sit down by him on the grass. We
accepted his offer: he then leaned towards us, and with a tender air he
slowly sung a song, without doubt of the Anacreontic kind, to the tune of
a flute, which an Indian blew with his nose: this was a charming scene,
and worthy of the pencil of a Boucher.5
And Wallis's amazing stories of trees that grew bread and palms that supplied
milk created a sensation in England.6 To Banks, "the scene that we saw was
the truest picture of an Arcadia of which we were going to be kings that the
imagination can form" ;7 and Hawkesworth wrote: "They seem to be
1 While in England Omai dressed in the

3 Ibid., p. 252.
conventional clothes of the day, appearing in 4 Ibid., p. 228.
a reddish-brown coat, white waistcoat, 5 Ibid.,
p. 223.
breeches and sword. See Tinker, op. cit., p. 76. 6 Hawkesworth, op. cit., I, pp.
268&,
2 Bougainville, op.
cit., pp. 244-5. 7 Banks, Journal, ed. cit., p. 74.
82 BERNARD SMITH
exempted from the first general curse 'that man should eat his bread in the
sweat of his brow'."'1
But a closer inspection invariably revealed to Europeans that there were
many features of Tahitian Society, and in Polynesia generally, that cast a
shadow over idyllic first impressions. Infanticide and cannibalism were not
uncommon in the Southern Arcadia. So interest increased in the moral and
religious customs of the islands. Interest in the morais,or burial places, in-
creased with each successive European visit.
Banks wrote a long and detailed account of the great morai of Oberea,2
but it is significant that he does not offer any critical comments upon its moral
implications. The funerary practices of the Tahitians were a matter of
curiosity to Banks; they were not obnoxious to him. The artists were equally
interested in these rites. Parkinson made a wash drawing 'View in the Island
of Huaheine with an Ewharra and a small altar with an offering on it'
(P1. 21a). This was engraved by William Woollett for Hawkesworth's Voyages
(P1. 21b). It is interesting to see what happened to the sketch in the engraver's
hands.3 Woollett is noted for the ability he had for investing his plates with
dramatic intensity. Parkinson'ssketch is a plain statement like Banks'sdescrip-
tion of the morai. He has not added comments in the light of his understand-
ing. But Woollett has made considerable alterations. An Ewhana Tree, from
another sketch by Parkinson, has been introduced on the left. Part of the
middle distance has been thrown into shadow so that the two figures which
stand out as black shapes in the foreground of Parkinson's sketch are now
picked out strongly with a shaft of light, which, passing them, lights up the
Ewharra,with its offering to the dead, and the tupapow,so unifying the solemn
theme. The discordant elements in the sketch, the store-house, the figures
near the boat, have been discarded and the graceful coconut palms, more
suggestive of tropical luxury than the theme warrants, have been relegated to
a corner. On the other hand the mournful leaves of the casuarina have been
enlarged considerably, while the distant mountains have been introduced to
give a touch of grandeur. When we notice the figure gazing thoughtfully at
the tupapow,the abandoned boat, and the leaves of the lily introduced into the
lower left corner without the sanction of Parkinson, we realize that Woollett
sought to provide his engraving with a meaningful intensity completely lack-
ing sketches. Parkinson's documentation has been transformed
in.Parkinson's
through another,man's understanding into a contemplative and melancholy
scene. It has become an essay on the theme of human transience in a new
setting, the sub-tropical abundance of a Southern Arcadia.
A comparison of the title Parkinson gave to his drawing and that given to
Woollett's engraving in the list of illustrations in Hawkesworth's Voyagesis
revealing. Parkinson called his sketch 'View in the Island of Huaheine with
an Ewharra and a small altar with an offering on it.' That is factual enough.
Ewharrameant house. Banks had asked a native boy what the house was.
The boy replied, "Ewharra no Eatua," which Banks translated as "the House
of God." Hawkesworth, recounting the incident, remarked on the "general
1 Hawkesworth, "after William Hodges" in Fagan, Cat. Rais.,
op. cit., II, p. 186.
2 Banks, Journal,ed. cit.,
p. 103 f. The Engraved Works of William Woollett,
3 The engraving is incorrectly described as London, 1885.
21
a-Parkinson, "Ewharra" in Huaheine, Drawing, signed 770, Brit. Mus.,

Add. MS. 23921, f. 25 (p. 82)
b-"Ewharra" in Huaheine, engr. Woollett after Parkinson. From Hawkesworth,

Voyages,II, 1773, P1. VI (p. 82)
c-Monuments in Easter Woollett after Hodges. From Cook, Voyage

Towardsthe SouthPole, I, I777 (p. engr.
Island, 83)
22
a-Sir Joshua Reynolds, Castle b Portrait of Omai, engraving after

Howard (p. 8o) Omai, 1775,
Nathaniel
Dance, 1774 (p. 8o)
d-Natives of Botany Bay, engr. Medland after
Cleveley. From Voyage of GovernorPhillip . . . , I789

(p. 89)
c-Family of New South Wales, engr. Wm. Blake.

From Hunter's Journal, 1793 (pp. 8o, 89, 99)
resemblance between this repository and the Ark of the Lord among the
Jews."'1 This is one of the very few Biblical allusions to be found in Hawkes-
worth; another2 is also associated with a description of funerary practice.
So seeking to emphasize the allusion Hawkesworth listed the engraving as
'A View in the Island of Huaheine; with the Ewharra no Eatua, in the House
of God.' Both Hawkesworth's title and Woollett's alterations have deepened
the picture's meaning. Hawkesworth's interpretation of the voyage was
roundly criticized for being not Christian enough. But a funerary practice
has here suggested a Biblical rather than a classical allusion.
The comments made by Forster on the subject .of Tahitian moralsalso
reveal how Tahitian funerary practices were evoking a kind of contemplation
that differed from Bougainville's happy idyll. Forster considered himself a
philosopher. His account of Cook's Second Voyage is filled with reflection
on new experiences. Like Woollett and unlike Banks and Parkinson he is
concerned with interpreting the morais.
We met with a glade or lawn, in the midst of which we saw a marai...
Towards the country, at some distance from the building, there was an
oblong enclosure round it made of stone, within which two or three
solitary coco-palms, gave an air of solemnity and pleasing melancholy to
the scene. At a little distance from the marai, surrounded by thick
shrubbery, we saw an inconsiderable hut or shed, (tupapow) . . . we ob-
served a woman sitting in a pensive attitude, who got up at our approach
and would not suffer us to come near her. . We
returned from this
..
place, which had really something grand in its appearance, and seemed
calculated to favour religious meditation.3
Even in the Southern paradise of Tahiti there were memorials of death that
aroused religious meditation.
In 1777 Woollett engraved another subject which gave full play to his
dramatic taste (P1. 2Ic). In March I774 Cook rediscovered Easter Island
and wrote his opinion of the statues he found there. They were not idols, he
suggested, but "monuments of antiquity" marking the burial places of certain
tribes or families.4 But they were not erected by the contemporary inhabitants,
who could not even give a satisfactory account of them. The voyagers found
that the monuments commemorated not only the dead of the present in-
habitants but were also a real indication of the passing of a more civilized
people. In March 1774 Forster recorded:
We marched to an elevated spot, and stopped a little while to take

some refreshments, and to give Mr. Hodges time to draw some of the
monuments, near one of which we found an entire skeleton of a man.5
The subject must have appealed to Hodges. In 1768 he had exhibited a
1 Hawkesworth, Round the World, .772-5, London,
op. cit., II, p. 253. 1777, I,
2Ibid., p. 143. P. 294.
3 Forster, 6 Forster, op. cit., I, p. 589.
op. cit., I, pp. 294-5.
4 Cook, A VoyageTowardstheSouthPole, and
84 BERNARD SMITH
painting at the Society of Artists called 'A View of a Druid's altar in Pembroke-
shire.' Here were ruins as mysterious in the South Seas. The mystery asked
for some kind of explanation. Forster suggested one:
... they are so disproportionate to the present strength of the nation, it is
most reasonable to look upon them as the remains of better times ...
We neither met with any quarries, where they had recently dug the
materials, nor with unfinished statues which we might have considered
the work of the present race.x
This led to the suggestion that the people of the island, whom Cook's company
found to be living in a very poor condition, once enjoyed a more flourishing
and prosperous state.
It is thereforeprobable, t~hatthese people were formerly more numerous,
more opulent and happy, when they could spare sufficient time to flatter
the vanity of their princes, by perpetuating their name by lasting monu-
ments. It is not in our power to determine by what various accidents a
nation so flourishing, could be reduced in number and degraded to its
present indigence. But we are well convinced that many causes may
produce this effect, and that the devastation which a volcano might make,
is alone sufficient to heap a load of miseries on a people confined to so
small a space.2
So the monuments were seen by one eye-witness at least, and doubtless many
of the others agreed with him, as the records of a decayed civilization. The
solitary native outlined against the ocean rests on his spear like the shepherds
leaning Dn their staffs in Poussin's Et in ArcadiaEgo, and contemplates, like
them, the symbol of mortality.3 It is noticeable that the skeleton is shown
larger than life size, so that the bones could be those of a giant. The theory
that the statues were raised by giants was widely accepted, so this interpreta-
tion might be credible if we did not know that Cook himself commented
sceptically upon the belief.4But the engraver'sgeneral intention is clear enough.
The basket of fruit held by the native, the giant leaves of the banana tree, the
rich profusion of plants that embroider the rocks, the shore-line and ocean-
these are the emblems of a South-Sea island paradise. Yet even here the
savage must remember human transience and contemplate the brevity of
happiness. The subject was in harmony with the sentiment of the time.
George Keate, whose Accountof the Pelew Islands (1788) did as much as
1 Ibid., pp. 593-4.- by a race of giants i o or 12 feet high as one
2Ibid., p. 594. The theory was apparently of the Authors of the Dutch Voyages asserts
discussed on the island, for J. Gilbert in his then the wonder ceaseth (i.e. the raising of
manuscript Log of H.M.S. Resolutionin the the monuments) and gives place to another
Public Records Office, London, presents a equally extraordinary, which is to know what
similar view. has become of the giants." (Cook's MS.,
3 See E. Panofsky, "Et in Arcadio Ego," Journal of H.M.S. Resolution,July 1772-
Philosophy and History, ed. Klibansky and March 1775, Public Records Office, London,
Paton, Oxford, I936, pp. 223-54. P- 330.)
' "Indeed if this island was once inhabited
to popularizethe notion that the South Sea Islander
Hawkesworth'sVoyages
was a noble savage, wrote a two-act play, The Monumentin Arcadia,in 1773.
This emergence of the Et in ArcadiaEgo motive in later eighteenth-century
South Sea art and literatureis a sign that people were becomingcritical of
the myth that in the South Seas there was a last terrestrialrefugewhere
man could live in perpetualhappinesswith a minimum of labour and sur-
rounded by the gifts of bountiful nature. The decisive attack however, as we
shall see later, came from the missionaries.
TheExile'sVision
Meanwhilethe problem of observingand interpretingwhat they saw in
the South Pacific was, in one respect at least, a simpler matter for visiting
travellersthan for the exiles and missionarieswho followedthem. Bankswas
as much an Englishmanin Matavai Bay as he was in Soho. It was, an
extended, if dangerous,holiday. There was no deep emotional break, nor
any conjuringup of northern imagery to revive memoriesof a homeland
never, perhaps, to be seen again. The testimony of the convict Thomas
Watling is by contrastof particularvalue since it enables us to observe the
operation of English eighteenth-centuryvision in the South Pacific from
quite a differentpoint of view.x
Transportedfrom Dumfrieson a conviction of forgery,Watling arrived
in Sydneyin October 1 792. Tolerablywell educatedby his aunt, intelligent,
ambitious,and ranklingunder the control of those he felt to be his inferiors,
he spent a most unhappy time in the colony. He has left his impressionsof
the Australianscene in his drawings,paintingsand letters. He opens his first
letter to his aunt with the words:
... melancholy'ssombreshadowlouringover my soul, endearsthe fleeting
moment by impelling me to write to you. Indeed, it is solely owing to
this despondentstate of mind, that aught I have producedfor those last
four years proceeds-exploring the wide domain of adversityterminated
by the impending darkness.2
In his lettersto his aunt Watling makesa distinctionbetween the kind of
landscapesuited to poetic inspirationand the kind suited to the requirements
of painting. Australia,he maintained,was a poet'snot a painter'slandscape.
Describinga trip up the ParramattaRiver he remarks:"the Poet may there
descry numberlessbeauties; nor can there be fitter haunts for his imagina-
tion."3 The country is romantic-"nothing can surpassthe circumambient
windings, and romanticbanks of a narrow arm of the sea that leads from
this to Parramatta,anothersettlement,fourteenmilesoff."4 Yet it is not suited
to pen and brush. For later on he writes:
1 For the known facts of Watling's life see 2 Letter of
May 12, 1793: Watling, Letters
H. S. Gladstone, "Thomas Watling, Limner from an Exile at Botany Bay to his Aunt in
of Dumfries," Transactions of the Dumfriesshire Dumfries, Penrith, 1792, pp. 1-2.
and GallowayNatural History and Antiquarian 3 Ibid., p. 8.
Society,3rd series, XX, pp. 70-133. 4 Ibid., pp.
7-8.
86 BERNARD SMITH
My worthy friend, Mr. H , may reasonably conclude, that these

romantic scenes will much amuse my pencil; though therein he is mistaken.
The landscape painter, may in vain seek here for that beauty which arises
from happy-opposed off-scapes.1
The Rev. William Gilpin made this distinction, implied by Watling, be-
tween romantic and picturesque beauty; picturesque beauty being to him
simply "that kind of beauty which would look well in a picture.'"2 He writes
of how he finds Arthur's Seat romantic but not picturesque for it is "odd,
misshapen, and uncouth... and a view with such a staring feature in it, can
no more be picturesque, than a face with a bulbous nose can be beautiful."3
To Gilpin the romantic was associated with the odd, misshapen and uncouth.
We might ask what were those qualities of landscape that Watling observed
on his trip to Parramatta that were romantic and not picturesque? For-
tunately he described the landscape in some detail.
The Poet may there descry numberless beauties; nor can there be
fitter haunts for his imagination. The elysian scenery of a Telemachus;
the secret haunts for a Thomson's Musidora;-arcadian shades, or classic
bowers, present themselves at every winding to the ravished eye. Over-
head the most grotesque foliage yields a shade, where cooling zephyrs
breathe every perfume. Mangrove avenues, and picturesque rocks, en-
twined with non-descript flowers:-In short, were the benefits in the least
equal to the specious external, this country need hardly give place to any
other on earth.4
For all the literary and classic reminiscences, things in New Holland are
not quite what they seem to be. There was something not quite real to
Watling about this antipodean scenery.
The vast number of green frogs, reptiles, and large insects, among the
grass and on the trees, during the spring, summer, and fall, make an in-
cessant noise and clamour. They cannot fail to surprise the stranger
exceedingly, as he will hear their discordant croaking just by, and some-
times all around him, though he is unable to discover whence it pro-
ceeds:-nor can he perceive the animals from whence the sounds in the
trees issue, they being most effectively hid among the leaves and branches.5
1 Telemachus to beware of "the seducing elo-
Ibid., pp. 8-9.
2 William Gilpin, Observationson the Western
quence of Calypso; that mischief which, like
Parts of England, London, I789, p. 238. a serpent, is concealed by the flowers under
3 Idem, Observations. . . on Sev. Parts of Gt. which it approaches; dread the latent poison"
Brit. part. the Highlands of Scotland, London, (Hawkesworth's trans., I769, pp. 7-8).-For
18o8, pp. 59-60. Musidora cf., apart from Gainsborough's
4 Watling, op. cit., p. 8. For the theme of painting, a painting of the same subject at
Telemachus and Calypso cf. Natoire's paint- the Society of Arts exhibition, May 1773, and
ing in the Petit Trianon, and Angelica Kauff- Robert Smirke's 'Musidora from Thomson's
mann's engr. by Bartolozzi. Watling prob- Seasons,' R.A. I792 and I8oo.
ably remembered the scene at the beginning 5Ibid., p. 10o.
of Fenelon's Tilimaque where Mentor warns
Furthermore these animals, like true antipodeans, reverse the habits of
northern animals: "the generality of the birds sleeping by day and capering
by night, is such an inversion in nature as is hitherto unknown."'
The strangeness of the scenery was what made it in Watling's eyes so
romantic, but this same strangeness made it, for him, unpaintable.
Watling's vision comprises both the topographical precision of the natural-
history draughtsmen and the classical tradition of the literary men. His
aunt had given him a liberal education, and his letters reveal that he had
some acquaintance with the aestheticopinions of his day. His main occupa-
tion whilst serving his sentence at Sydney was to make drawings of plants and
animals for John White, the surgeon at the settlement, who was associated
with a circle of natural historians that included Banks and Aylmer Burke
Lambert. To separate the truly observed facts from the traditional imagery
in Watling's work is valuable for the light it throws on the beginnings of
Australian landscape-art. The "grotesque foliage," the "mangrove avenues,"
the "non-descript flowers," all have been truly observed from the local scene
on the Parramatta river. Such observations were quite out of reach of a
Praed or Hervey attempting to describe the Australasian scene from Cam-
bridge years later.2 But when Watling talks of elysian scenery, of arcadian
shades, classic bowers, cooling zephyrs, and picturesque rocks, we observe the
powerful images which he derived from his education acting as a filter
through which he saw and commented upon the local scene. In being the
first artist resident in Australia to combine his own observations, however
weighted with an exile's melancholy, with the traditional imagery of Europe,
Watling was a pioneer. There are, however, only four pen and wash drawings
and one oil painting of landscape at present known which are signed by him.
This is in striking contrast to the number of natural-history drawings bearing
his signature.3 He was apparently as good as his word and avoided Australian
landscape because it was not a suitable subject for the painter.
To appreciate his sketches we must remember the purpose for which they
were made-some to illustrate journals, and others for natural-history publi-
cations. Unlike the sailor-topographers of the First Fleet, Watling does not
1 There was a tendency among early believer in everything beyond his own reason
settlers to describe objects of natural history might exclaim 'Two distinct Creators must
which they found in Australia as an inversion have been at work; their object, however, has
of the corresponding phenomena of the been the same, and certainly the end in each
northern hemisphere: cf the mediaeval logic case is complete.' " (Charles Darwin, Nar-
that created men with reverse feet-antipodes rative of the Voyagesof the Adventureand Beagle,
-to inhabit the southern hemisphere (see R. London, I839, 11I, p. 526.) Mediaeval
Wittkower, "Marvels of the East," Journal of theologians argued the non-existence of the
the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, V, 1942, antipodes by stating that such an existence
p. 182). The strangeness of the plants and implied two separate acts of Redemption.
animals of Australia created problems for the 2 See below, p. 98.
scientist too. When he was visiting the Blue 3
Watling's natural history drawings and
Mountains of New South Wales in pen and wash drawings are preserved in
I835,
Charles Darwin wrote in his journal: "A little the "Watling" drawings, British Museum
time before this I had been lying on a sunny (Natural History). The oil painting, 'Sydney
bank, and was reflecting on the strange in I794' is in the Dixson Collection, Public
character of the animals of this country as Library of New South Wales, Sydney.
compared with the rest of the world. An un-
88 BERNARD SMITH
overload his drawings with detail. While remaining topographical in their
intention they attain unity by his assured treatment and broad and simply
stated washes. Here topographical drawing pays homage to the picturesque
method.
Only once, so far as we know, was Watling able to paint a picture that
truly reflects the point of view expressed in his letters. We can get a good
idea of how he went about composing his painting 'Sydney in 1794' (P1. 23c)
by studying the drawing he made for it entitled 'Taken from the Westside of
Sydney Cove behind the Hospital' (P1. 23a).
Watling's drawing contains an horizon line which curves evenly in one
arc, a line that Gilpin condemned in his appreciation of landscape forms.'
In the painting the same line has been softened, is more broken, and has been
turned into a serpentine curve. The major alterations, however, have been
made in the foreground. In the drawing it is light, in the painting, dark.
Describing his own method Gilpin wrote, "in general, we are perhaps better
pleased with a darkforeground. It makes a kind of graduating shade, from
the eye through the removed parts of the picture; and carries off the distance
better than any other contrivance."* Against the uniformly dark foreground
Watling throws a strong light upon a few buildings in the right foreground.
Here, too, he is working in line with Gilpin's suggestions. "In a landscape, . . .
when a building, or other object of consequence, appears on the foreground,
and the distance is of little value, the light . . . may then fall on the fore-
ground."3Further, Watling has suppressed the foreground details to be found
in the drawing after the manner of Gilpin, who, again speaking of his own
work, writes, "in most of these sketches the foreground is just washed in."'4
To complete the picturesque treatment Watling adds a large tree of in-
determinate species on the left and a clump of trees on the right.5
From these alterations 'Sydney in 1794' emerges as the product of a com-
posite vision. Sufficient topographical facts have been included to make the
painting a useful illustration of the colony after six years of settlements other-
wise the picture conforms to a pattern that might have been used by any
contemporary journeyman painter of England who had some acquaintance
with the works of Claude and Salvator Rosa, or the picturesque travel books
of the day. Watling was aware of the travel books, for he wanted to publish
one himself. In a projected advertisement that he sent to his aunt in which
he called himself "Principal Limner of New South Wales" he proposed
the Execution of a Picturesque Description of that Colony; in an highly-
1 "Indeed a continuity of line without a 3
Ibid., loc. cit.
break, whether it be concave, straight, or 4 Ibid., p. 36.
convex, will always displease, because it 5 Cf. Gilpin: ". . . call for an ancient oak
wants variety." Observations. . . made in 1772, to give the foreground grandeur equal to the
on Sev. Parts of England, part. the Mountains and scene when we want the magnificence of its
Lakes of Cumberlandand Westmoreland,London, shadowing form to mantle over a vacant
1786, p. 83. corner of a landscape, or to scatter a few
2 W. loose branches over some ill-shaped mountain
Gilpin, On the Principles on which the
Author's Sketches are composed, London, 1804, line." Observations. . . made in 1772 . . . ,
pp. 35-6. p. xo6.
-R R
5'. --'='
a-Thomas View from West side o y ney Cove, Natives on the North Shore
Watling, f. b-Watling,
"Watling" Drawings, o, No. 19 (p 88)
Aborigine, Detail, "W

"Watling" Drawings, (p
f. 23, No. 57 (p. 89)
the British Museum (Natural H
a, b, d, e-By permission of
By permission of the Public Library of New South Wales
Sydney Dixson Public Library of New

c-Watling,
South Wales, SydneyCove, 1794,
(p. 88) Collection,
24
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By permission oJ the London Missionary Society
a-Robert Smirke, The Cession of Matavai Bay, 1798, Livingstone House, London (p. 92)
o
w!ii
~i~ii:iI•••
b-Hope, Art, Lab)ourand Peace at Botany Bay, engr.

after Mledallion b)yWedgwxood. From Voyageof Governor
Phillip, i789, litle-page (p.
/J)
finished Set of Drawings, done faithfully upon the Spots, from Nature, in
Mezzo, Aqua-tinta, or Water Colours.1
The noble savage idea affected the interpretation of the Australian
aborigine in the early years of settlement. "The artist of the Banksian MS.
34," an unidentified sailor-topographer who travelled to Botany Bay with the
First Fleet in 1788, rarely borrowed attitudes, yet he could paint a wounded
aborigine in the pose of the Dying Gaul (P1. 23e). The drawings of New
South Wales natives by Robert Cleveley engraved by Medland for Phillip's
Voyageto BotanyBay (P1. 22d) have a family likeness to those engraved by
Bartolozzi and Sherwin. Cleveley was never in New South Wales. The
aborigines of Phillip's Voyageare plump, the skin is unduly pale, and the hair
falls in long curls around the neck. William Blake's 'Family of New South
Wales,' engraved for Hunter's Journal (P1. 22c),2 is also classicistic in feeling
and based on the old convention which portrayed all the members of a native
family with their ethnic attributes. But the noble savage of the nineties is a
much reduced version of the noble savage of the seventies as presented by
Bartolozzi, Cipriani, Woollett and Sherwin. The reduction was carried
further by Watling. Like Parkinson, another Scotchman from the lower
middle classes, he did not take kindly to an idea championed largely by the
London literati. In his wash drawings classical poses become adapted to an
amusing popular usage. For instance, the woman holding a spear in P1. 23b
postures in an attitude reminiscent of that of the Medici Venus.3 Such poses
compete with those peculiar to Australian aborigines such as the strange
resting position which involved placing one leg on the thigh of the other
(P1. 23d).
Yet there was still a tendency on the part of Phillip and some of his
officers to see the aborigine as a charming and wayward child. A particularly
favoured native was provided with a well-built hut, a special suit of clothes,
and placed on the Government ration. To Watling this administrative
paternalism bordered on hypocrisy.
Here I cannot help making what may appear rather an ill-natured
1 in Blake's engravings for Capt. J. G. Sted-
2
Watling, op. cit., p. 26.
It is not generally known that Blake en- man's Narrative of a Five Years' Expedition
graved the plate. It is not mentioned by against the RevoltedNegroes of Surinam..
A. G. B. Russell, The Engravingsof William 1772-7, published by J. Johnson, London,
Blake, London, 912, nor by Geoffrey Keynes 1796 (Vol. I, opp. p. 2oo, Vol. II, opp.
in his Blake Studies, London, 1949, though p. 280). For Blake and the noble savage see
Keynes does mention the problematical Fairchild, op. cit., pp. 303-4, 414-6, etc.
'View of the Town of Sydney in the Colony 3 Thomson's Musidora, mentioned in
of New South Wales' engraved by W. S. Watling's letter quoted above (p. 86), is
Blake in 1802. Sir William Dixson gives both actually described by the poet in the pose of
these engravings to William Blake (Journalof the Medici Venus:
theRoyalAustralianHistoricalSociety,V, p. 229). With wild surprise,
But it has been shown that W. S. Blake is As if to marble struck, devoid of sense,
A stupid moment motionless she stood:
another engraver. There can be no doubt So stands the statue that enchants the world;
that 'A Family of New South Wales' is by So, bending, tries to veil the matchless boast,
William. It has "Blake" at lower right, and The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.
the use of the mother-child motif is seen also The Seasons:Summer,1344-9-
go90 BERNARD SMITH
remark; our governors, for they are all such, have carried philosophy, I
do not say religion, to such a pitch of refinement as is surprising. Many
of these savages are allowed, what is termed, a free-man's ratio of pro-
visions for their idleness. They are bedecked at times, with dress which
they make away with at the first opportunity, preferring the originality
of naked nature; and they are treated with the most singular tenderness.
This you will suppose not more than laudable; but is there one spark
of charity exhibited to poor wretches who are at least denominated
Christians? No, they are frequently denied the common necessaries of
life! wrought to death under the oppressive heat of a burning sun; or
barbarously afflicted with often little merited arbitrary punishment,-this
may be philosophy according to the calculation of our rigid dictators;
but I think it is the falsest species of it I have ever known or heard of.'x
Thus in Watling's work we witness a decline in the notion of the noble
savage. There were others in England who also thought it false.
The IgnobleSavage
The Rev. Thomas Haweis, one of the founders of the London Missionary
Society, tells how the reading of Cook's Voyages in his youth led him to con-
ceive of missionary enterprise in the South Seas. Haweis was the trustee and
executor of Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, who more than anyone
else introduced the moral earnestness of Methodism into English aristocratic
circles. Later he became the manager of her Trevecca College, from whence
Evangelical missionaries left for many parts of the world. Haweis preached
a First Sermon to the newly-formed Society on September 22, 1795. It gives
a clear impression of the Evangelical attitude to the savages and scenery of
the southern seas.
A new world hath lately opened to our view, call it Island or Continent,
that exceeds Europe in size: New Holland; and now become the recep-
tacles of our outcasts of society.-New Zealand, and the innumerable
islands, which spot the bosom of the Pacific Ocean, on each side of the
Line, from Endeavour Straits to the Coasts of America; many of them full
of inhabitants,--occupying lands, which seem to realize the fabled Gardens
of the Hesperides,-where the fragrant groves, which cover them from the
sultry beams of day, afford them food, and clothing; whilst the sea offers
continual plenty of its inexhaustible stores; and the day passes in ease and
affluence, and the night in music and dancing. But amidst these enchant-
ing scenes, savage nature still feasts on the flesh of its prisoners-appeases
its Gods with human sacrifices-whole societies of men and women live
promiscuously, and murder every infant born amongst them.2
Here was a different attitude to the South Sea Islander. To Hawkesworth,
Keate, and the English ladies who had made so much of Omai, the Polynesians
1Watling, op. cit., p. 12. beforethe Missionary Society, Sermon I; London
2 "The Apostolic Commission," Sermons Missionary Society, London, 1795, p. 12.
were people who had'been fortunate enough to preserve the natural goodness
of man by living a simple life in close contact with a kindly nature. But to
Haweis the natural beauty of Tahiti and the spiritual and moral degradation
of the native is complete. "Yet untutored offspring of fallen nature! how are
you to be pitied"' he cried in his sermon. He sees the savage as Bougainville
had seen him, living in a natural paradise. But he does not see him, as
Bougainville saw him, living in this paradise in a state of innocence, but as
fallen and unredeemed man. Haweis and the evangelists had no belief in the
noble savage. His attitude to Omai, an embodiment of the idea, is clear
evidence of this:
The foolish Omai was an expense more than would have maintained a
mission to the island. Not so much as an attempt was made to give him
any knowledge tending to the saving of his soul. He was led away to stare,
and be stared at, at our public places, and be as abandoned as those who
frequent them; and in the presence of all the officers his introduction at
Huaheine, the place of his settlement, at his return was celebrated by an
offering to the Eatoa !2
This is not only criticism of Omai but criticism of the sentimentality and
popular philosophizing that had grown about the Tahitian in intellectual
circles. The missionary enterprise developed from the interest awakened by
the travel literature. But it reacted strongly against the primitivistic theories
that accounts of the Tahitian had stimulated. The savage raised no funda-
mental doubts about the structure of society in the minds of the Evangelists.
They believed in civilization and Christianity was its keystone. After 1795
the force of Christian ideas was felt in the Pacific:
The spirit of maritime discovery and scientific research in which the
voyages of Cook and others originated, followed by the glowing descrip-
tions of the countries which they visited and the tribes they discovered,
together with Keats' fascinating, but, to a great extent fictitious, account
of the Pellew Islands and of Prince Leboo, published in I788, excited
among all classes throughout Europe feelings of the most romantic interest.
The accounts of society in those remote regions were eagerly seized by the
philosophers of that age, and exultingly held up to admiration of the
civilized world, as evidence of the fallacy of many of the unpalatable
truths of Divine revelation, and examples of the compatibility of a course of
life condemned by the Bible with a high and enviable degree of happiness.
At the same time, there were not a few who, while they shared in much
of the romantic feeling which these accounts of scenes so novel and en-
chanting excited, were guided by a surer light than philosophy, falsely so
called, and regarding the untaught islanders as needing the enlightening
and purifying principles of true religion, longed for the means of convey-
ing it to their distant abodes. These, together with a sense of obligation,
1
Ibid., loc. cit. See also W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches,
Letter from the Rev. T. Haweis, Evan- London, I830, II, pp. 94-5, for a similar
gelical Magazine, London, July I795, p. 263. view.
92 BERNARD SMITH
devolved by the Saviour upon all his make his Gospel known
disciples,.to
unto others, were among the chief causes which operated in originating
the several missionary institutions already noted.'
The Society established, the Missionary Ship Duff,2 under Captain Wilson,
was sent out the following year. The Tahitian chieftain Pomare agreed to
cede the district of Matavai to the missionaries for their use. William, son
of the Captain, made sketches on the spot which were later used by Smirke
when he painted a large picture of the proceedings. The picture, now at
Livingstone House, was shown at the Academy of 1799 (P1. 24a), and an
engraving made of it by Bartolozzi for the benefit of the Society. The picture
is described in detail in Missionary Sketches,July 1829.
Smirke has sought to combine the requirements of journalism with the
presentation of a significant historical event on an ideal level. "It exhibits,"
says the description in MissionarySketches,"not only the rich luxuriance of the
scenery, but the complexion, expression, dress, and tattauing of the natives
with remarkable fidelity and spirit." The picture may be compared with
Zoffany's 'Death of Cook.'3 The main figures are posed ideally, but Smirke's
idealism differs from Zoffany's. The witchdoctor ceding the district crouches
submissively before Wilson, symbol of Christianity and civilization. The
savage is presented no longer as the ideal representative of the simple life of
nature. He has become a simple, friendly fellow awaiting the gifts of a
superior civilization. Smirke does not cast his natives in the mould of Greek
gods. They are presented rather to arouse feelings of pious pity.
It was not only Haweis, back in England, who saw Tahiti in his mind's
eye as an Eden after the Fall. One of the missionaries, George Vason, who
sailed in the Duf and later "went native" for some years, told the Rev. Piggott
much later in his life how the scenery and people of Tahiti first impressed
him and his friends on their arrival in 1795:
Had we not known that Eden was become desolate through the sin
of the primeval pair, the abundant fertility that beautified this Island,
and blessed its inhabitants with ease and plenty, might have led us to call
this a second paradise planted in the watery waste. Indeed we met with
many natives, who were shaded only with that covering, which the
original pair entwined around their loins, when sin first disgraced the
image of the Deity, and conscious guilt impressed them with the sense of
shame.4
The scenery is still paradisean but the people bear the evidence of original
sin. This changed attitude to the native, a product of the moral earnestness
of Evangelicalism with its consciousness of the reality of sin, had been grow-
1 W. Ellis, History of the London Missionary 3 See C. Mitchell, op. cit.
Society, London, 1844, p. 5. 4 Geo. Vason, An AuthenticNarrative of Four
2 An account of the
voyage and proceed- rears' Residence at Tongataboo, One of the
ings at Tahiti is given in A Missionary Voyage FriendlyIslands,ed. Rev. S. Piggott, London,
to the SouthernPacific Ocean 1796-8 in the Ship 1815, p. 64.
Duff, London, 1799.
ing for some time. An earlier form of the conception is to be found in the
poem Otaheite,published in I774. To the poet the island is the embodiment
of the Golden Age:
Here, ceaseless, the returning Seasons wear
Spring's verdant robes, and smile throughout the year
Refreshing Zephyrs cool the noon-tide Ray,
And Plantane Groves impervious Shades display.
The gen'rous Soil exacts no Tillers' Aid
To turn the Glebe and watch the infant Blade;
Nature their vegetable Bread supplies,
And high in Air luxuriant Harvests rise.
No annual Toil the foodful Plants demand,
But unrenew'd to rising Ages stand;
From Sire to Son the long succession trace,
And lavish forth their gifts from Race to Race.
Beneath their Shade the gentle Tribes repose;
Each bending Branch their frugal Feast bestows:
For them the Cocoa yields its milky Flood,
To slake their Thirst, and feed their temp'rate Blood
No ruddy Nectar their pure Bev'rage stains,
Foams in their Bowl and swells their kindling Veinr.
All nature seems to help to make a happy and virtuous people. But was it
true that man retained a natural virtue merely by living in accord with
nature's simple plan? The poet is not convinced. He has read of terrible
things:
Can cruel Passion these calm Seats infest,
And stifle Pity in a Parent's Breast?
Does here Medea draw the vengeful Blade,
And stain with filial Gore the blushing Shade;
Here, where Arcadia should its Scenes unfold,
And pastoral Love revive an Age of Gold?
It was not the knowledge of death merely, but ritual murder, that sullied
the innocence of this southern Arcadia. Yet, if only the natives can be brought
"out of darkness into marvellous light" perhaps the island may yet be an
Arcadia. So pity for the native aroused a sense of obligation to fulfil Christ's
injunction to his disciples. And the nation who accepts the duty becomes a
"teacher of mankind."
On Minds which thus untaught thus darkling stray,
To pour the radiant Beams of heavenly Day.
Teach them their Beings Date, its Use and End,
And to immortal Life their Hopes extend,
How great the Triumph! But to whom assigned?
What Nations rise the Teachers of Mankind ?
The best expression of this missionary ideal to make man as good as the
"nature" he lived in is, of course, to be found in Bishop Heber's' well-known
hymn From Greenland'sIcy Mountains. It was in the islands of the Pacific,
1BishopR. Heber, 1783-1826.
94 BERNARD SMITH
where "'everyprospect pleases and only man is vile" that the proof of man's
sinful nature was most adequately demonstrated.
In the first half of the nineteenth century the noble savage declined as a
pictorial formula. In April I818 the London Missionary Society began to
publish MissionarySketches,a small periodical pamphlet for the information
of contributors. It reported on the progressof the Society and related interest-
ing items from the mission fields. In the 'Destruction of the Idols of Otaheite'
(Pl. 25b), published in July I819, the natives are shown as swarthy excitable
people. They now possess less personal dignity than Smirke's Tahitians.
Comparing the woodcut version of John Webber's 'The Offering of a
Human Sacrifice in Tahiti' with the original (P1. 25a, d), the changing
convention for depicting the savage is apparent.' Webber did not attempt
to idealize natives in the manner of Cipriani, Reynolds, and Zoffany, but they
possess more dignity.than the squat and swarthy pagans of the woodcut copy.
There is nobility neither of physique nor gesture here. It was a splendid
subject for propagating the missionary cause; the illustrator was interested
only in emphasizing an atrocity. And a comparison of 'Massacre of the
Companions of La Perouse at the Navigator's Islands' 25c) with 'The
at
Landing Erramanga' (P1.25e), drawn by Hodges and (P1..
engraved by Sherwin,
reveals how much the conventional treatment of savages had altered in the
course of fifty years. To the missionaries one pagan was very much like
another. Missionary illustrations were usually embellishments of verbal
accounts; few drawings were made on the spot. Aspects of native life were
selected that would promote the work of the missions; illustrations of native
rites, idols, natives accepting Christianity, or natives attacking missionaries.
Like the voyages of the late eighteenth century the missionary pamphlets of
the early nineteenth century had a wide public appeal. It is probable that
the popular illustrations of the nineteenth century, which presented savages
as invariably dark, ferocious and frizzy-haired, derived much from the
missionary reports and illustrations. This would explain such contrasts as
that between the illustration of the death of Cook by John Webber2 and the
illustration of the same incident which appears as the frontispiece of a popular
version of Cook's voyages, published in I892 (Pl. 25f). The contrast with
Zoffany's ideal murderer of Cook is, of course, even more striking.3 Here,
perhaps, is the source of the degraded ignoble savage that gained currency
in illustrations for boys' adventure books in the late nineteenth century.
The Evangelical attitude to the southern native spread beyond the
missionary societies. Captain Furneaux, by returning with Omai, had shown
the English aristocfacy a noble savage, and society was willing to accept him
as one. Half a century or so later Captain Robert Fitzroy, Commander of
the Beagle,brought back four Tierra del Fuegans when he returned to London.
His plans for their visit, and their reception, offers another comment upon
the changing status of the savage in English sentiment. He submitted his
plan to the Admiralty for approval:
I shall procure for these people a suitable education and, after two or
2
1John Webber, topographical artist on Mitchell,
3 Mitchell, op. cit., P1. IB.
Cook's Third Voyage, 1776-80. op. cit., P1. IA.
a Human Sacrifice at Tahiti (p. 94)
d-John Webber, A Human Sacrifice at Tah

British Museum Add. MS. 15513, f- 16 (p. 94
b Destruction of the Idols of Otaheite (p. 94)
e-The Landing at Erramanga, engr. Sherwin after

Hodges, Detail. From Cook, Voyage Towards the South
Pole, II (pp. 94)
79,
c-Massacre of the Companions of La Perouse a-c-Woodcuts from Missionary Sketches,

(P. 94) Oct. 1837, July 1819, Jan. 1840
three years shall send them back to their country, with as large a stock
as I can collect of those articles most useful to them, and most likely to
improve the condition of their countrymen, who are scarcely superior to
the brute creation.1
The Admiralty approved, gave assistance in maintaining and educating them,
and provided a passage home. Fitzroy landed in London with them after
dark, took them to "comfortable airy lodgings," had them vaccinated, then
took them to the country. Their education was supervised by the Secretary
to the Church Missionary Society, and Rev. Wilson of Walthamstow, where
they remained from December 1830 till October 1831.
The attention of their instructor was directed to teaching them
English, and the plain truths of Christianity, as the first object; and the
use of common tools, a slight acquaintance with husbandry, gardening
and mechanism, as the second.2
Thus the Admiralty paid attention to Evangelical criticism. Omai had been
asked to sing his pagan songs and take snuff, the Tierra del Fuegans were
taught Christianity and the use of tools. When they returned two young
missionaries went with them.
The Idea of Progress

Christianity and the use of tools: to save pagan man it was also necessary
to bring him the benefits of civilization. The noble savage and the southern
Arcadia, though both ideas exhibited considerable toughness in the face of
the methods of exact reporting championed by the Royal Society, were
cultural conceits. We have no evidence that any among Sandwich's circle
of friends really thought that Omai was his superior or even his equal. But
it was a current and pleasant hypocrisy to say so. Even Forster, who had
genuine doubts about the value that would accrue to Polynesian society from
contact with Europe, was certain of the superiority of European civilization.
Witness his thoughts upon leaving Dusky Bay:
The superiority of a state of civilization over that of barbarism could
not be more clearly stated, than by the alterations and improvements we
had made in this place.3
There followed an enthusiastic description of how Cook had brought the
sciences, the arts, and the contemplation of philosophers to the wild shores
of the bay. And this was Cook's view, the view of the practical man of the
eighteenth century. It implied not only that the savage should be raised from
his barbarism but also that the landscape itself should be made worthy of
I
Letter of Robert Fitzroy, Commander of Beagle, London, 1839, II, p. 6.
the Beagle, to P. P. King, Commander of the 2Ibid., p. 12.
Adventure,in Capt. J. Fitzroy, Narrativeof the 3 Forster, op. cit., I, pp. I77-80.
SurveyingVoyagesof H.M. Ships Adventureand
7
96 BERNARD SMITH
civilized man. Governor Phillip, founder of the settlement at Botany Bay,
expressed such a view in his Voyageto BotanyBay.
There are few things more pleasing than the contemplation of order
and useful arrangement, arising gradually out of tumult and confusion;
and perhaps this satisfaction cannot anywhere be more fully enjoyed than
where a settlement of civilized people is fixing itself upon a newly dis-
covered or savage coast. The wild appearance of the land entirely un-
touched by cultivation, the close and perplexed growing of trees, inter-
rupted now and then by barren spots, bare rocks, and spaces overgrown
with weeds, flowers, flowering shrubs or underwoods, scattered and inter-
mingled in the most promiscuous manner, are the first objects that present
themselves; afterwards, the irregular placing-of the first tents which are
pitched, or huts which are erected for immediate accommodation,wherever
chance presents a spot tolerably free from obstacles, or more easily cleared
than the rest, with the bustle of various hands busily employed in a
number of the most incongruous works, increases rather than diminishes
the confusion of effect, which for a time appears inextricable, and seems
to threaten an endless continuance of perplexity. But by degrees large
spaces are opened, plans are formed, lines marked, and a prospect at least
of future regularity is clearly discerned, and is made the more striking by
the recollection of former confusion.1
The same idea was expressedin Erasmus Darwin's dedicatory poem, The Visit
of HopetoBotanyBay, which appeared as a preface to Phillip's Voyage.2Darwin
sees the allegorical figure of Hope standing high on a rock above Sydney
Harbour. Calming the waves and stretching her hands over sea and land she
delivers a prophetic message, telling how broad streets will extend their stately
walls about a city planned with circus and crescent, how canals and roads
will radiate from this city, how "a proud arch, colossus-like"will bestride the
glittering streams, and how villas will crown the landscape, and farms,
orchards, spires and quays rise as commerce expands and the city grows.
Darwin's figure of Hope is an advocate of municipal progress. The poem
was based on Wedgwood's medallion, made from clay brought from Sydney
Cove (Pl. 24b). It represented 'Hope encouraging Art and Labour, under
the influence of Peace, to pursue the employment necessary to give security
and happiness to an infant settlement.'3
The urbanizing vision of Phillip, besides being expressed in poetic form
by Erasmus Darwin, also found its visual counterpart in the topographical
drawings of the settlement at Sydney, made by the convict artistsJohn Eyre
and Joseph Lycett. Eyre's paintings are clear topographical statements of an
English eighteenth-century community in the South Pacific (P1. 26a). Lycett
applied the same rational vision to the surrounding countryside. His Views
in Australia present many of the country seats of the new Australian society
1 The Voyageof GovernorPhillip to Botany 2Erasmus Darwin, Temple of Nature,
Bay, London, 1789. The book was a com- London, 3 The I824,
p. I26.
pilation from official reports sent back to Voyage of GovernorPhillip . . . , title-
England during the first year of settlement. page.
(P1. 26b). The paintings of Eyre and Lycett reveal that Erasmus Darwin's
prophecy of an English community in the South Pacific was taking shape.
And when Charles Darwin visited Sydney in 1835 he was able to check the
extent to which his grandfather's prophecy had been fulfilled. Erasmus had
written of "broad streets and stately walls." Charles reported that the streets
were "regular, broad and dclean." Erasmus had prophesied "solid roads."
Charles reported that the roads were excellent and made on the Macadam
principle. Erasmus had prophesied "embellished villas crowning the land-
scape." Charles reported "beautiful villas and nmcecottages" along the beach.
Erasmus had said that "northern treasures would dance on every tide."
Charles saw a fine villa built from the profits made from steam vessels.'
Older beliefs in a southern paradise were not inconsistent with ideas about
the need and value of progress. The missionary Ellis joins -the two points of
view in his appreciation of Tahitian scenery.
Often when I have journeyed through some of the inland parts of the
islands, such has beenthe effect of the scenery through which I have passed,
and the unbroken stillness which has pervaded the whole, that imagina-
tion, unrestrained, might easily have induced the delusion, that we were
walking on enchanted ground, or passitig over fairy lands. It has at such
seasons appeared as if we had been carried back to the primitive ages of
the world, and beheld the face of the earth, as it was perhaps often ex-
hibited, when the Creator's works were spread over it in all their endless
variety, and all the vigour of exhaustless energy, and before population
had been extended, or the genius and enterprise of man had altered the
aspects of its surface.
Yet despite the magnificence of this kind of scenery, Ellis prefers a humanized
landscape.
The valleys of Tahiti present some of the richest inland scenery that
can be imagined. Those portions of them in which the incipient effects of
the advancement of civilization appear, are the most interesting; present-
ing the neat white plastered cottages in beautiful contrast with the pic-
turesque appearance of the mountains, and the rich verdure of the plains.2
Belief in progress was also fortified by the notion of a Golden Age. In
Erasmus Darwin's poem The Economy of Vegetation (1791),3 he adopted the
theory of the Earth propounded by Whitehurst,4 who maintained that the
continents were formed by conjunction of innumerable islands formed by the
immense quantities of shells annually "produced and relinquished or left after
the death of the animals." From this it followed that the primeval islands of
the world "were raised but a few feet above the level of the sea, and were not
1 Charles Darwin, op. cit., III, p. 516. State and Formationof the Earth, London, 1778,
2 Ellis, Polynesian
Researches,I, pp. 203-4. chap. 26. Joseph Banks, Erasmus Darwin
3 Erasmus Darwin, The and William Hodges were all subscribers to
Temple of Nature,
p. 27. the publication.
4 J. Whitehurst, Inquiry into the Original
98 BERNARD SMITH
exposed to great or sudden variations of heat and cold. . . . Whence the
paradise of the sacred writers, and the golden age of the profane ones, seems
to have had a real existence."I' From this it was inferred that the salubrious
climate and bountiful nature of the Pacific Islands alone preserved the loveli-
ness of the Golden Age. Erasmus Darwin incorporated the idea into his own
evolutionary theory.
Though it was possible for some to preserve the notion of a Golden Age
in poems that an evolutionary view of the world, for others progress
meant a furtherpresentl
movement away from the noble savage. James Montgomery,
a religious poet whose father had been a missionary, adopts Whitehurst's
theory in his long poem The PelicanIsland.2 As in a vision Montgomery sees
the islands join together to become continents "by nice economy of Provi-
dence." He notices that nature seems to stand still on these islands.
Here is no progress to sublimer life;
Nature stands still,-stands at the very point,
Whence from a vantage point her bolder steps
Might rise resplendent on the scale of being.
And then he sees the savage of the islands:
. . sunk in loathsome degradation,
A naked, fierce, ungovernable savage
Companion to the brutes, himself more brutal,
Superior only in the art that made
The serpent subtlest beast of all the field,
Whose guise unparadised the world, and brought
A curse upon the earth which God had blessed
The curse was here without the mitigation.
Montgomery's solution is, of course, that the savage must be civilized and
made Christian. In I823 the subject for the Chancellor's Prize Poem at
Cambridge was "Australasia." Mackworth Praed, who won the competition,
presents an Arcadian landscape along the traditional lines and proceeds to
enlarge on the dark hatreds, viciousness and cannibalism of savagery.3 The
poem ends with a call for missionaries.
And are there none to succour? none to speed
A fairer feeling and a holier creed?
Hervey, who also enter d for the competition, brings together in his poem4
arcadian landscape descriptions, the ignoble savage, the call for missionary
enterprise, and ends with a vision like Darwin's of "spreading cities" with
their turrets and spires. But in Hervey's poem progress has become an
imperial idea. Australia is drawn as a "mighty scion" that is to spring from
the parent tree of Great Britain. The same idea was used by William Charles
Wentworth, the Australian competitor, who wrote of Australia as "a new
1 Erasmus Darwin, loc. cit. London, I840.
2 James Montgomery, ThePelicanIslandand
4 Thomas K. Hervey, Australia; with Other
Other Poems, 2nd ed., London, 1828. Poems, Cambridge, 1824.
3 William Mackworth Praed, Australasia,
a-View of Sydney, engr. after John Eyre. From D. D. Mann, Present b-Captain Piper's Naval Villa, engr.
Picture of Wales, I8II in Australia, London, i824 (p. 97)

N\ew South (p. 96)
c-Detail of Panoramic View of Sydney, engr. after J. Taylor, 1823 (p. 99)
27
By permission of the Mitchell Library, Sydney

a-P. G. King, Aborigine holding b-W. H. Fernyhough, Portrait of Board-
Spear, Drawing, ca. I 79o, Banks man, Lithograph, 1836. From Aborigines of
Papers, Vol. XV, A.8o0 (p. 99) New South Wales (p. 99)
c--J. Carmichael,
Male and Female
Black Natives,
Engraving. From
Maclehose, Sydney,
1839 (P. 99)
Drwing
Spea, dca KI7oBngkeaotLthgapLiho1833aph,136ioo)oiinso
Teapot,
d-King 833(p.
Lithograph,Ioo.)
Britannia in another world."' Wentworth did not mention the need for
religious progress in the southern seas, and it was this that, in his own view,
cost him the prize. In a preface to his published poem he wrote:
The author feels that his poem would have been much more perfect,
if some allusion had been made in it to the religious improvement which
has been effected in Australasia, and particularly to the great missionary
efforts which are now in progress in the Polynesian archipelago . its
omission too was less excusable, as it may be considered a species . . of
ascriptioglebaeto the ancient and religious manor from which the subject
sprang.
The visual parallel to these poems is to be found in the early views of
Sydney published in England. Water-colourists, like the poets, sought to
satisfy diverse interests. In his suggested advertisements for a projected
PicturesqueDescriptionof New South Wales Watling stated that the subjects
would include "general views of Sydney, Parramatta, and Toongabbe,
romantic groves, or native groups, and that if possible curiosities of botany
and ornithology should be interwoven."2 Aims closely similar were set out in
several introductions to Views in New South Wales published in the first two
decades of the nineteenth century. The diverse interests were frequently
included in the one drawing. As late as 1823 Major Taylor's 'Part of the
Harbour of Port Jackson, and the country between Sydney and the Blue
Mountains, New South Wales' (Pl. 26c) appeals to three interests; the prac-
tical interest in the "progress of civilization" shown by ships, buildings and
farming, the lingering Rousseauism of the "native groups," and the interest,
now declining, in botany indicated by the exotic flowers in the foreground.
Social progress was separating the native from his natural setting. In 1835
Charles Darwin reported how he had seen an aboriginal tribal quarrel fought
out in the main street of Bathurst. There was something amusing about the
incongruity of such incidents. Robbed of his hunting ground the aborigine
soon had to live on the margin of settlement or move inland.
By the time that Darwin arrived in Sydney both the noble savage admired
by the friends of Lord Sandwich and the fallen brother pitied by the clergymen
at Trevecca College had become a humorous figure. W. H. Fernyhough's
series of twelve profile portraits of Australian aborigines were published in
1836 (Pl. 27b). Depicting the native in European clothing they combine
fidelity to fact with a consciously humorous intention. Just how far the
aborigine had been divested of the nobility with which earlier travel literature
had endowed him is revealed by comparing Fernyhough's portrait of Board-
man with the drawing of an aborigine in a similar pose among the Banks
Papers in the Mitchell Library, Sydney (Pl. 27a).3 An even more striking
contrast is afforded by comparing Blake's 'Family of New South Wales'
(P1. 22c) with J. Carmichael's 'Male and Female Black Natives' (P1. 27c).
1 W. C. Wentworth, Australia, A Poem, Australia, Sydney, 1936, pp. 36-54.
London, x823. A full comparison of the 2
Watling, op. cit., p. 26.
poems by Praed and Wentworth is contained 3 See also Charles
Rhodius, AboriginalKings
in P. R. Stephensen, Foundations of Culture in and their Gins, Sydney, 1834.
Ioo BERNARD SMITH
Carmichael has shown the aborigine as a tragi-comic figure, but far more
common were such straightforwardly humorous illustrations as 'King Tea
Pot,' published in 1833 by an unknown artist (P1. 27d).
Thus we have seen that in the processes of thought which directed the
interpretation of Pacific peoples and landscape the artist had rarely been
more than an illustrator of the convictions of the group to which he belonged,
or which employed him. Serious belief in the terrestrial existence of Eden or
Arcady, and in the original sin or natural virtue of southern natives, declined
with the extension of the empirical methods of observation championed by
the Royal Society. Yet classical and Christian traditions continued to live a
shadowy life of their own in simile and metaphor, and in the emotional over-
tones of popular illustration. In that guise they widely affected the interpre-
tation and frequently the description of South-Sea phenomena. Only in
Hodges' antarctic drawings and in Watling's recognition that Australian
landscape was unpaintable in terms of a picturesque formula, do we find,
perhaps, as we find in Charles Darwin's comments on the natural history of
Australia, a hint of prophecy.

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European Vision and the South Pacific

Author(s): Bernard Smith

Two acknowledgments are due: to the 2 See

4. To make Plotts and Draughts of prospects of Coasts, Promontories,

Thus Banks employed Buchan in order to be able to bring back pictures of

F Terminals, Speimn coeed inrw

Bypriso fth rts uem NtrlHsoy

c-Eucalyptus Terminalis, Engr., ca. 1780 (p. 70) d-Eucalyptus Terminalis,Specimnencollected in

tural Grotto in New

The Inhabitants:The NobleSavage

a--William Hodges, The Iwg-* Pl-

By permission of theAustralian Museum, Sydney

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b-. ucanPatkiveonHutivDrawingrr d768, ego, -Bawitolo1768EngitavinM ofativd HutFro

a-Parkinson, Drawing, 769, h-Engraving from Hawkes- c-Engraving from Atlas to

A young girl came aboard who prompted an obvious comparison:

Justified by such observations on the spot, the illustrators of south-sea voyages

1 While in England Omai dressed in the

a-Parkinson, "Ewharra" in Huaheine, Drawing, signed 770, Brit. Mus.,

b-"Ewharra" in Huaheine, engr. Woollett after Parkinson. From Hawkesworth,

c-Monuments in Easter Woollett after Hodges. From Cook, Voyage

a-Sir Joshua Reynolds, Castle b Portrait of Omai, engraving after

d-Natives of Botany Bay, engr. Medland after

Cleveley. From Voyage of GovernorPhillip . . . , I789

c-Family of New South Wales, engr. Wm. Blake.

We marched to an elevated spot, and stopped a little while to take

My worthy friend, Mr. H , may reasonably conclude, that these

Aborigine, Detail, "W

Sydney Dixson Public Library of New

By permission oJ the London Missionary Society

b-Hope, Art, Lab)ourand Peace at Botany Bay, engr.

d-John Webber, A Human Sacrifice at Tah

b Destruction of the Idols of Otaheite (p. 94)

e-The Landing at Erramanga, engr. Sherwin after

c-Massacre of the Companions of La Perouse a-c-Woodcuts from Missionary Sketches,

The Idea of Progress

Picture of Wales, I8II in Australia, London, i824 (p. 97)

By permission of the Mitchell Library, Sydney

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