Nine or ten miles north of Gotton and fifteen miles farther inland is the town of Benin, called Great Benin by us on account of its size (because there is no town of equivalent size to be found in these regions), and called Oedo by the inhabitants. The town, together with the Queen’s court, is about five or six miles in circumference, or, to exclude the court, three miles within the gates. The town is fortified on one side by a wall ten feet high, made of a double palisade of broad trees with joists of five or six feet laid crosswise, each fixed to each other, the whole worked solidly together with red loam. This wall runs round only one side of the city, and on the other side is a marsh and dense bush which is no small protection for the city. The town has several gates, eight or nine feet high and five feet wide, with doors made of single whole pieces of wood, which turn on staves like farmers’ gates in this country.
The King’s Court
The king’s court is square and on the right side of the town when you enter from Gotton. It is easily as big as the town of Haarlem and enclosed by a remarkable wall, similar to the city wall. It is divided into many fine palaces, houses and rooms for courtiers and has beautiful long galleries about as big as the Exchange at Amsterdam, and one yet bigger than the others, all resting on wooden pillars, covered from top to bottom with cast copper, which depict deeds of war and battle scenes. These are carefully maintained. Most of the royal houses in the court are covered with palm‐leaves instead of planks, and each is adorned with a pyramidal tower which has at its apex a skilfully wrought, very life‐like copper bird, spreading its wings.
The town has thirty very straight broad streets, each about 120 feet wide, as wide as the Keisersgracht or the Heerengracht in Amsterdam, from the houses on one side to those on the other, and in addition there are many broad intersecting streets, though these are somewhat narrower.
Houses
The houses stand beside each other, built in an orderly way, as here in this country, displaying handsome fronts and verandahs and roofed with palm or banana or other kinds of leaves. They are not higher than one storey, but they are usually large with long galleries within, especially the houses of noblemen, and divided into many rooms. The interior walls are of red loam and very pleasantly made. With washing and polishing they are made as smooth and even as any plastered wall in Holland and as shining as a looking‐glass. The floors are made of the same earth. Each house furthermore has a fresh‐water well. In brief there are no houses anywhere in those parts as nicely built as these.
IB13 William Dampier (1652–1715) The first encounter with indigenous Australian people
Dampier was an English sailor and adventurer whose greater success was earned in writing about his voyages, especially his account of A New Voyage Round the World (1697–1703). It was widely read at the time, and helped stimulate public interest in the Pacific. Dampier’s writings had an influence both on the formation of the South Sea Company (of the famous ‘bubble’) and on Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. The philosopher John Locke read them with interest. In the present short extract, Dampier describes a first encounter with native Australian people. He strikes a note which continues right through the subsequent literature, emphasizing the seemingly extreme primitiveness of the people and their apparent lack of all the attributes of civilization, such as houses, tools and clothing. He completely fails to perceive the delicate and sophisticated interaction of the people with their extremely hostile environment, an impression that contributed to the doctrine of terra nullius, which underwrote subsequent colonization. It has to be confessed that Dampier was not alone in this; few whites ever did begin to grasp the relationship of the people to their land until well into the twentieth century (cf. VIB9). Our extracts from A New Voyage Round the World are taken from the text printed in Exploration and Exchange: A South Seas Anthology 1680–1900, edited by Jonathan Lamb, Vanessa Smith and Nicholas Thomas, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, pp. 10 and 12–14.
New‐Holland is a very large Tract of Land. It is not yet determined whether it is an Island or a main Continent; but I am certain that it joins neither to Asia, Africa, nor America. […]
The Inhabitants of this Country are the miserablest People in the World. The Hodmadods of Monomatapa, though a nasty People, yet for Wealth are Gentlemen to these; who have no Houses, and skin Garments, Sheep, Poultry, and Fruits of the Earth, Ostrich Eggs, &c. as the Hodmadods have: And setting aside their Humane Shape, they differ but little from Brutes. They are tall, strait‐bodied, and thin, with small long Limbs. They have great Heads, round Foreheads, and great Brows….
They have great Bottle‐Noses, pretty full Lips, and wide Mouths. The two Fore‐teeth of their Upper‐jaw are wanting in all of them, Men and Women, old and young; whether they draw them out, I know not: Neither have they any Beards. They are long‐visaged, and of a very unpleasing Aspect, having no one graceful Feature in their Faces. Their Hair is black, short and curl’d, like that of the Negroes; and not long and lank like the common Indians. The Colour of their Skins, both of their Faces and the rest of their Body, is Coal‐black, like that of the Negroes of Guinea.
They have no sort of Cloaths, but a piece of the Rind of a Tree tied like a Girdle about their Waists, and a handful of long Grass, or three or four small green Boughs full of Leaves, thrust under their Girdle, to cover their Nakedness.
They have no Houses, but lie in the open Air without any covering; the Earth being their Bed, and the Heaven their Canopy. Whether they co‐habit one Man to one Woman, or promiscuously, I know not; but they do live in Companies, 20 or 30 Men, Women, and Children together. Their only Food is a small sort of Fish, which they get by making Wares of Stone across little Coves or Branches of the Sea. […] When they have eaten they lie down till the next Low‐water, and then all that are able march out, be it Night or Day, rain or shine, ’tis all one; they must attend the Wares, or else they must fast: For the Earth affords them no Food at all. There is neither Herb, Root, Pulse nor any sort of Grain for them to eat, that we saw; nor any sort of Bird or Beast that they can catch, having no Instruments wherewithal to do so.
I did not perceive that they did worship any thing. These poor Creatures have a sort of Weapon to defend their Ware, or fight with their Enemies, if they have any that will interfere with their poor Fishery. They did at first endeavour with their Weapons to frighten us, who lying ashore deterr’d them from one of their Fishing‐places. Some of them had wooden Swords, others had a sort of Lances. The Sword is a piece of Wood shaped somewhat like a Cutlass. The Lance is a long strait Pole sharp at one end, and hardened afterwards by heat. I saw no Iron, nor any other sort of Metal; therefore it is probable they use Stone‐Hatchets, as some Indians in America do….
How they get their Fire I know not; but probably as Indians do, out of Wood. I have seen the Indians of Bon‐Airy do it, and have my self tried the Experiment: They take a flat piece of Wood that is pretty soft, and make a small dent in one side of it, then they take another hard round Stick, about the bigness of one’s little Finger, and sharpening it at one end like a Pencil, they put that sharp end in the hole or dent of the flat soft piece, and then rubbing or twirling the hard piece between the Palms of their Hands, they drill the soft piece till it smoaks, and at last takes Fire.
IC