Vol. 17, No. 2 September 2006 - Indigenous Flora and Fauna ...

Thursday 18 January: Grassy Woodland, beside
Dandenong Creek:
"We have been travelling over a very fine, I may say
beautiful country, all hill and dale, and the creek running
between, with a wide space of meadow land on each side,
the soil and grass on both very good, trees thin mostly
Honey Suckel, Wattle & Gum, I have not seen a more
interesting country anywhere, it is worth the attention of
either farmer or grazier. . . passed a number of native huts,
they are always to be found on the banks of rivers &
creeks"
Friday 19 January: Plains Grassy Woodland (mature
River Red Gums)
"Some parts of the land has a great deal of timber on it,
and on others very little, but where that is the case it is
very large, some would measure 40 feet in circumference,
but they are always very short in the barrel."
From the immense size and description of these trees,
they must have been River Red Gum Eucalyptus
camaldulensis. A few of these giants survive today.
Encounter with Koories:
Indigenotes Volume 17, Number 1, April 2006
"At 1 oclock 2 native men paid us a visit, they had tracked
us for some distance, having heard us fire at some ducks,
they left us for a short time, and took some tea which had
been given them to show their friends, which were encamped
at no great distance from us, but previously to them
going I made them understand, that if they brought the tin
pot back I would give a tomahawk in lieu, in half an hour
they returned bringing an old man with them, who from the
great degree of familiarity used towards us, and his examining
everything belonging to the party with a sort of desire, I
strongly suspected him to be a rogue, and cautioned the
men against him, I was not long before my suspicions were
verified for having found where the hatchet was put, used by
us, he contrived to conceal it under his cloak, and appeared
carelessly lounging about, at the same time sideling off
towards a thick scrub close by, on seeing that I enquired if
the hatchet was safe, it was gone, and he was going too, but
the sight of a musket pointed towards him brought him back
quickly. . . knowing the way to treat them on those occasions,
not coercively but by signs the very white people treat
each other under such circumstances, afterwards we
became good friends, and he with the others requested we
would accompany them to their camp to get the tin pot, and
at 2 oclock set forward for that purpose, on arrival within a
short distance of the camp, the women and children retreated,
the men began to arm themselves with their spears
and called out to those with us to keep the guns, of which
they are in very great dread, further off, judging the occasion
of the alarm I gave my piece to one of my party, all of
whom I had decided to keep at a distance, and went to the
camp alone, on seeing me unarmed they laid down their
spears and became perfectly reconciled, I made them
sensible where I had been & where I was going, gave each of
them fishing hooks (which they knew the use of) and the
tomahawk to the young man, who in return gave me the tin
pot, and we set forward on our journey but the old man who
had stolen the hatchet now made up for the breach of good
faith, by accompanying us to a considerable distance (about
a dozen followed) and put us upon a path which he gave me
to understand would take me to where the boat can come,
this was the river I wanted [Sawtell Creek]. There were
several old men among them, but one in particular which
appeared the chief was the oldest, the hair on his head &
also his beard, which was very long, was perfectly white, his
legs and arms very small, but he appeared in good health
and I should judge him to be about 70 years, they are all in
what may be termed good case, and from the cause of them
having several good kangaroo legs, no doubt live well, they
appear very active, and what ever we may think to the
contrary, I have no doubt happy."
In this fascinating encounter, Hovell would have known
that a violent confrontation so far from help could have
been disastrous. He appears to have been reasonably
diplomatic and was able to communicate with the
Koories effectively although he was in fact assessing the
suitability of their land for future European colonisation.
"Some of the men & boys had one of the front teeth
knocked out, others again had not. The most of them had
curly heads, but one or two, had lank, they had parts of
several kangaroo, one or two tin pots, some pieces of iron
made into tomahawks, and some pieces of millen cloth.
They had got their huts on the top of a small hill & creek
on the side, and at the commencement of a very beautiful
country, we had three hours travelling on this delightful
country. . . the grass is very fine, but so thick and long
although young that there is not a spot of earth to be seen,
and there is not more than 2 or 3 trees on an acre except
on the tops of the ranges."
Further reading:
Cook D & Yugovic J (2003). Clyde-Tooradin Grassland re-discovered. The Victorian
Naturalist 120: 140–146.
Hovell WH (1827). Remarks on the Voyage to Western Port. Manuscript (microfilm
copy), State Library of Victoria.
Rosengren N (1984). Sites of geological and geomorphological significance in the
Westernport Bay catchment. Environmental Studies Series 401,
Department of Conservation, Forests & Lands, Victoria.
Smythe GD (1842). Survey of the eastern coast of Western Port. Land Victoria.
Urquhart WS (1847). Continuation of the survey of the Toomuc Creek to the Great
Swamp. Central Plan Office, Land Victoria.
Yugovic J & Mitchell S (in press). The Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp and associated
grasslands: A retrospective. The Victorian Naturalist.
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