Had Polyphemus Been At Hand, Peron Would Have
Politely Requested Him To Permit Himself To Be Weighed And Measured, And
Would Have Written An Admirable Monograph On His Solitary Optic.
There were, he considered, some reasons for thinking that a race of men
of heroic proportions inhabited this western part of the continent.
The
Dutch captain, Vlaming, in 1697, had reported finding gigantic human
footprints upon the banks of the Swan River, near where the city of Perth
now stands; and two of Baudin's officers, whose names were not Munchausen
and Sindbad but Heirisson and Moreau, declared that they also had
observed the same phenomena at the same place. Peron set down these
stories to the exaggerative distortion of lovers of the marvellous, "of
whom we counted some amongst us." But when the sailors came scampering
back to the ship with the tale that they had actually seen the giants and
been pursued by them, the naturalist began to think that there was
probably some ground for the belief. At all events, he determined to go
and see for himself.
He requested Baudin to send a few armed men ashore with him, but was
rudely refused. Not to be thwarted in continuing his researches in so
favourable a place, Peron determined to make use of a couple of days
during which a furnace was to be erected for extracting salt from the sea
by evaporation - the ship's supply having been depleted - to run the risk
of an excursion on his own account; whereupon Petit, one of the artists,
and Guichenot, one of the gardeners, resolved to accompany him.
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