Australia Day plus two
They followed us upon the rocks as far as the boats went along that shore.”
Just two days after the First Fleet anchored in Sydney Cove, Captain John Hunter, in a longboat, commenced a survey of the harbour, going first at what was to become known as Mosman (Mossman’s) Bay.
At the landing place known by the name of Koree by the original inhabitants, later Chowder Bay, Lieutenant William Bradley recorded:
“…We observed some women at the place the men came down from, they would not come near us, but peep’d from behind the rocks and trees. when the Boats put off, the Men began dancing and laughing and when we were far enough off to bring the place the Women were in sight, they held their arms extended over their heads, got on their legs and danced until we were some distance, then followed us upon the rocks as far as the boats went along that shore.”
Lifted from here : Pittwater online News
Bradley was witnessing a great rejoicing by the Kuringgai, who thought the ghosts had no interest in their homelands and would never return.
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William Bradley (1758–13 March 1833) was a British naval officer and cartographer who was one of the officers who participated in the First Fleet to Australia. During this expedition, Bradley undertook extensive surveys and became one of the first of the settlers to establish relations with the aborigines with whom he struck up a dialogue and whose customs and nature he studied extensively.
He later however fell out with his aboriginal contacts and instead undertook a mission to gather food which ended with an eleven-month stay on Norfolk Island after a shipwreck.
Bradley’s later career was overshadowed by his steadily deteriorating mental state. Although a successful small ship commander, Bradley became increasingly erratic and was eventually retired as a result. A few years later, suffering serious mental problems, Bradley committed a highly unusual case of postal fraud and was ultimately exiled. He never returned to Britain but lived in quiet disgrace in France.
Wikipedia.
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