"Who knows but that England may revive in New South Wales when it has sunk in Europe."

Fish of the Great Barrier Reef, Agincourt Reef, Far North Queensland. April 2021.

Banks by Grantlee Kieza

The strongest elements of this rich and detailed biography are those during the defining period of Banks' life and career: his voyage with James Cook's expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour from 1768 to 1771.

I particularly enjoyed the section on their visit to far north Queensland (I happened to be visiting while reading the book). The tensions between the young Banks and Cook regarding the latter's brusque approach to the native peoples was enlightening and foretold both Cook's eventual fate and the subsequent treatment of Australia's original inhabitants.

Much like Banks' life after returning to England, the book tends to drift with occasional flashes of colour. I was less interested in the internal politics of the Royal Society or Banks' love life than I was in the exploration of the new world.

While Cooks' latter voyages, the Arthur Phillip-led invasion and John Macarthur's template-setting for cunning and corruption that set the tone for Australia's political development are interesting enough, it is not new ground nor particularly germane to Banks' life (over 17,000 kilometres away).

Nonetheless, it is a well-written and engaging tale with enough colour and anecdote to keep the story ticking along.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Comments

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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