Bennelong

On my return, I was surprised to see all our boats rowing towards home, and with them a canoe in which sat two Indians paddling.

I pulled to them and found that Bennelong and another Indian were in one of the boats, and that the whole formed a party going over to visit the governor.

I now learned that during my absence, the governor had passed in a boat on his return from Rose Hill near the place where they were standing, and that finding he would not come to them, although they had called him to do so, they had at once determined to venture themselves unreservedly among us.

One of the men in the canoe was the person to whom I was to give the hatchet I had been to fetch, and directly as he saw me, he held up his spear and the exchange took place.

With which, and perhaps to reward me for the trouble I had taken, he was so delighted that he presented me with a throwing stick gratis.

Not seeing Berangaroo of the party, I asked for her and was informed that she had violently opposed Bennelong's departure.

When she found persuasion vain, she had recourse to tears, scolding, and threats, stamping the ground and tearing her hair.

But Bennelong continuing determined, she snatched up in her rage one of his fish gigs and dashed it with such fury on the rocks that it broke.

It's about 600 pages.

And it's told from a dual perspective of the Aboriginal people living in what we now call Sydney, more specifically the character of Bennelong.

And it's also told from the perspective of the British arriving on the First Fleet.

I don't read heaps of historical fiction.

Boats properly provided under the command of Lieutenant Bradley of the Sirius were accordingly dispatched on this service and completely succeeded in trepanning and carrying off without opposition two fine young men who were safely landed among us at Sydney.

Nanbury and Abroo welcomed them on shore, calling them immediately by their names, Baneelon, Bennelong, and Colby.

But they seemed little disposed to receive the congratulations or repose confidence in the assurances of their friends.

The same scenes of awkward wonder and impatient constraint which had attended the introduction of Arabanoo succeeded.

Bennelong we judged to be about twenty-six years old, of good stature and stoutly made, with a bold, intrepid countenance which bespoke defiance and revenge.

Colby was perhaps near thirty, of a less sullen aspect than his comrade, considerably shorter and not so robustly framed, though better fitted for purposes of activity.

They had both evidently had the smallpox.

Notwithstanding which, Colby contrived to effect his escape in about a week with a small iron ring round his leg.

It follows the convicts building a settlement in a country that baffled and terrified them.

But it also follows Bennelong, the Eora man who would become one of the most significant figures of those early years, and other Aboriginal characters whose perspective shifts the entire weight of the story.

It was the first major Australian novel to take seriously and centrally the experience of the First Nations people in those early years of contact.

It looked at two worlds colliding with clear eyes.

Oh, yes, good story.

And this relates to a friendship that he ended up developing with Bennelong who was an Aboriginal man.

Do you want to describe that scene?

Yeah, I do.

But this particular event, Ben Along was over at what's now called Manly and a whale had washed up on the beach inside the cove there, you know, in the harbour.

And there were a couple of fellas that decided they were going, I think Dr. Trench was one of them, they were going to walk up the Hawkesbury through the trees along the beaches.

Anyway, Ben Long said, oh, can you send the boat back to get Arthur Phillip and tell him that we've got this whale meat that we'd like to share? So the boat went back and the boat that came across actually had squires First name, the guy that did the distillery, James.

He was actually in the boat as well as several other Marines.