Australia and the European Imagination Papers from a Conference Held at the Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, May 1981

Abstract

These topoi did not only exert their influence on Joseph Banks' imagination, for Cook's own remarks on the natives of New South Wales are very similar indeed, albeit in an even more formula-like fashion which contrasts the necessities of life in natural and civilized man and leads to a similar critique of the Europeans. From what I have said of the Natives of New Holland they may appear to some to be the most wretched People upon Earth; but in reality they are far more happier than ...