He Made Various
Attempts To Push The Boat Free, But The Mooring-Rope Which Held It Fast
Making His Efforts Futile, He Was Constrained To Abandon Them, And
Returned To Us, After Having Given Us The Most Striking Example We Had
Ever Had Of Attention And Reflection Among Savage Peoples."
Presently the companion of the young aboriginal came down the hill and
joined the group.
He was an older man, about fifty years of age,
grey-bearded and grey-headed, with a frank and open countenance. He also
was permitted to satisfy himself that the Frenchmen were white-bodied as
well as white-faced; and being assured that there was nothing to fear
from these strange visitors, he signalled to two black women, who had
remained hidden during the earlier part of the interview. One was a gin
of forty, the second aged about twenty-six; both were naked. The younger
woman carried a black baby girl in a kangaroo skin, and Peron was pleased
to observe the affectionate care she showed for her child. A surprise as
great as that which the young male black had shown concerning the boat,
was manifested by the younger woman in a pair of gloves. The weather
being cold, a fire was lit, when one of the sailors, approaching it to
warm himself, took off a pair of fur gloves which he was wearing. "The
young woman, at the sight of that action, gave forth such a loud cry that
we were at first alarmed; but we were not long in recognising the cause
of her fright. We saw, from her expressions and gestures, that she had
taken the gloves for real hands, or at least for a kind of living skin,
that could be taken off, put in the pocket, and put on again at will. We
laughed much at that singular error; but we were not so much amused at
what the old man did a little later with a bottle of arack. As it
contained a great part of our drink, we were compelled to take it from
him, which he resented so much that he went off with his family, in spite
of all I could do to detain them longer."
At Bruni Island, Peron and a party of his compatriots had an adventure
with a party of twenty native women. He did not find them charming. All
were in the condition in which Actaeon saw Diana, when "all undrest the
shining goddess stood," though they did not, when discovered, glow with:
"such blushes as adorn
The ruddy welkin or the purple morn."
Indeed, they appeared to be quite unaware that there was anything
remarkable about their deficiency of clothing. "A naked Duke of
Windlestraw addressing a naked House of Lords" might have shocked them,
but not merely because he was naked. They were greatly interested when,
as a sign of friendliness, one of the Frenchmen, the doctor of Le
Naturaliste, began to sing a song. The women squatted around, in
attitudes "bizarres et pittoresques," applauding with loud cries. They
were not, however, a group of ladies for whom the Frenchmen had any
admiration to spare. Their black skins smeared with fish oil, their
short, coarse, black hair, and their general form and features, were
repulsive. Two or three young girls of fifteen or sixteen years of age
the naturalist excepted from his generally ungallant expressions of
disgust. They were agreeably formed, and their expression struck him as
being more engaging, soft, and affectionate, "as if the better qualities
of the soul should be, even amidst hordes of savages, the peculiar
appanage of youth, grace, and beauty." Peron remarked that nearly all the
older women were marked with wounds, "sad results of bad treatment by
their ferocious spouses," for the black was wont to temper affection with
discipline, and to emphasise his arguments with a club.
If the black gins gave no satisfaction to the aesthetic sense of the
naturalist, his white skin appeared to be no less displeasing to them;
and one of them made a kindly effort to colour him to her fancy. She was
one of the younger women, and had been regarding him with perhaps the
thought that he was not beyond the scope of art, though Nature had
offended in making his tint so pale. Rouge, says Mr. Meredith, is "a form
of practical adoration of the genuine." Charcoal was this lady's
substitute for rouge. A face, to please her, should be black; and, with a
compassionate desire to improve on one of Nature's bad jobs, she set to
work. She approached Peron, took up some charred sticks, rubbed them in
her hand, and then made advances to apply the black powder to his face.
He gravely submitted - in the sacred cause of science, it may be
supposed - and one of his colleagues was favoured with similar treatment.
"Haply, for I am black," he might have exclaimed with Othello after the
treatment; and the makers of charcoal complexions were charmed with their
handiwork. "We appeared then to be a great subject of admiration for
these women; they seemed to regard us with a tender satisfaction," wrote
Peron; and the reflection occurred to him "that the white European skin
of which our race is so proud is really a defect, a sort of deformity,
which must in these distant climates give place to the hue of charcoal,
dull red ochre, or clay." Bonaparte would not have concurred; for he, as
Thibaudeau tells us, emphatically told his Council of State, "I am for
the white race because I am a white man myself; that is an argument quite
good enough for me." It was hardly an argument at all; but it sufficed.
The expedition encountered extremely bad weather along the eastern coast
of Tasmania; where, also, Captain Baudin was too ill to superintend the
navigation in person. He shut himself up in his cabin, and left the ship
to his lieutenant, Henri de Freycinet. Le Naturaliste was separated from
her consort during a furious gale which raged on March 7 and 8, and the
two vessels did not meet again till both reached Port Jackson.
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