The Australian Botanical Journals of Allan Cunningham, Volume 2 The Later King Expeditions February 1819 – September 1822

About this book

This is the second in a series of books transcribing for the first time the full text of the botanical journals kept by the pioneering botanist Allan Cunningham in Australia and linking them to surviving plant specimens in London and Australian institutions.

It covers the last three major survey expeditions to the north and northwestern coasts of Australia under the command of Phillip Parker King, the first two in the Cutter Mermaid, the last in the Brig Bathurst.

Here in Allan Cunningham's discursive and often lyrical words is an account of the first contact between a well-educated European botanist, a forbidding landscape and a strange flora. The account is not restricted to botany. Cunningham discussed the geology, mineralogy and zoology of the country he encountered, contacts with various groups of the native inhabitants, and encounters with the other visitors to the coast, the Macassan trepangers.

The account is addictive reading: the expeditions endured groundings on numerous occasions, near shipwreck on several reefs and headlands, the suspense of exploring inlets and rivers, not knowing what was around the next corner, accidents like the loss of multiple anchors and smashed boats thousands of kilometres from the nearest assistance, encounters with wildlife, including whales, crocodiles, seasnakes, turtles and seals, and dashes to Timor and Mauritius to replenish supplies.

And between expeditions, there is Cunningham's account of activities in the colony of Port Jackson, just 30 years after settlement, under the watchful eye of Governor Lachlan Macquarie

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