A musket was fired one day, and the natives
marvelled less at the noise than at the fact that the bullet made a
hole in a piece of bark at which it was aimed.
To calm them, "an
officer whistled the air of 'Malbrook,' which they appeared highly
charmed with, and greeted him with equal pleasure and readiness. I may
remark here," adds the Captain of Marines, "what I was afterwards told
by Monsieur de Perousse" (so he mis-spells the name) "that the natives
of California, as throughout all the isles of the Pacific Ocean,
and in short wherever he had been, seemed equally touched and delighted
with this little plaintive air." It is gratifying to be able to record
Captain Tench's high opinion of the efficacy of the tune, which is
popularly known nowadays as "We won't go home till morning." One has
often heard of telling things "to the Marines." This gallant officer,
doubtless, used to whistle them, to a "little plaintive air."
It was the practice of Laperouse to sow seeds at places visited by his
ships, with the object of experimenting with useful European plants
that might be cultivated in other parts of the world. His own letters
and journal do not show that he did so at Botany Bay; but we have other
evidence that he did, and that the signs of cultivation had not
vanished at least ten years later. When George Bass was returning to
Sydney in February, 1798, at the end of that wonderful cruise in a
whaleboat which had led to the discovery of Westernport, he was
becalmed off Botany Bay.
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