Story of John Cannan's Explorations

John Cannan was one of the original surveyors sent out from England by the Colonization Commissioners, arriving in South Australia in the Cygnet. G. S. Kingston was the leader of the surveyors on this ship, and among the others were Messrs. Finnis, Hardy and Cannan, whose names will appear in this article.

E. J. Eyre left Port Lincoln on August 5, 1839, on his trip to the Western district. Before leaving Adelaide, his Excellency the Governor (Col. George Gawler) had arranged that a boat would meet Eyre at Cape Bauer. The Governor therefore instructed the Surveyor-General (Capt. C. Sturt) to send John Cannan to meet Eyre as arranged, and he was to take provisions and other necessary supplies, and be at the rendezvous on September 15. The boat engaged for the trip became unseaworthy as the time for departure grew close, and another and smaller one, the Ranger, was selected in her stead.

In addition to junctioning with Eyre, Cannan was given the task of sounding, examining and making accurate charts of Streaky, Denial and Fowler's Bays, as well as the coastline between, as far as might be possible. In a vice-regal despatch Col. Gawler claims the distinction of selecting Cannan. Sturt also said he selected John Cannan "in whose zeal and ability I have every confidence," he stated. And well might he say so.

Col. William Light, after he left the Service, wrote to the Hon. J. H. Fisher the Resident Commissioner: "Messrs. Cannan and Hardy have been very usefully employed in the surveys, and from the ending of the first year I have considered them assistant surveyors and given them charge of parties accordingly, and their services have been of much value to me."

The Governor, writing to Col. Torrens in England, with reference to Messrs, Finniss, Hardy and Cannan, said that the latter gentleman "is now employed in the dangerous and important services of surveying the harbors of Streaky and Denial Bays," and referring to the three collectively, whom he had been instructed to dismiss, said "Each of these officers hold their distinguished positions for their skill, their industry and the service they have rendered to the commissioners and to the colony."

LOSS TO RECORDS

It is a decided loss to our records in South Australia that the Governor sent Cannan's report to the Colonization Commissioners in London. At present, locally, we have only excerpts therefrom, firstly, that to be found in the records of the British House of Commons Select Committee in South Australia, and, secondly, in Capt. Sturt's "Narrative of an Expedition into Central Australia, 1844-1846." Whether these two extracts are from the same report or two separate reports I am not in a position to say at present.

John Cannan sailed in the Ranger from Port Adelaide on September 9, 1839, and reached Streaky Bay on September 27. On landing there he found Eyre's tracks, but no sign of the explorer. Eyre, writing to the Colonial Secretary on October 19 1839 shortly after his return to Adelaide, gave the reason, saying he reached Cape Bauer (now Cape Wondomal) much before the appointed time. He left a portion of his party at Streaky Bay, while he went onwards, reaching Point Bell, but was forced to return from there to Streaky Bay and "on rejoining my party at the depot at the southern end of Streaky Bay, Cooyeana, no appearance of the vessel most kindly sent by his Excellency the Governor to meet my party at Streaky Bay."

The Governor, writing to England, continues the history, for he wrote of Eyre: "On the 18th, the small vessel not having arrived, he took the enterprising resolution of going direct across" the peninsula to Mount Arden. Capt. Sturt recognised he had given Cannan an almost impossible task in the winter time, for he says: "The task I had assigned him would I know be attended with considerable risk in beating along that dangerous and stormy coast."

Sturt says that Cannan on arriving on September 27, was disappointed in not finding Eyre or the letter he had buried for him under Cape Bauer. This is the only reference to a letter I have been able to trace ; can anyone say whether it was ever recovered?

Before glancing at such portions of Cannan's report as are available, it is worthwhile reading what the "Port Lincoln Herald" of November 16, 1839, has to say:- "The Ranger has just put in here in a leaky state having experienced dreadful weather to the westward. Her object was to co-operate with Mr. Eyre in his journey of discovery to the western limit of the colony. She did not, however, succeed in falling in with him."

GRAVEYARD OF HOPES

Denial Bay and the neighborhood seems to have been the graveyard of treasured hopes. First Pieter Nuyts finished his journey there, D'Entrecasteaux could not reach there. Flinders could not finally make an effectual examination. Baudin on his first visit had to abandon his work on account of the state of his provisions and men, and later on Freycinet failed to meet his commander there and had to make a perilous voyage to King George's Sound in consequence; and now we learn that Cannan had to likewise abandon portion of his survey because his boat was so leaky and the weather so bad.

The Archives Department in Adelaide is endeavoring to get a copy of Cannan's report from England, for me. If it can be procured, the missing parts will be published in a future article. In the meantime we will follow Cannan's movements as well as possible from the material available.

On landing at Denial Bay on October 8 Cannan again found tracks of Eyre. Three natives approached and appeared quite friendly, and by signs indicated that Eyre had first gone westerly and then returned eastward. Being convinced that Eyre had abandoned the coast, on account of its barrenness, scarcity of water, and also that he (Cannan) had received no answer to their constant signals of guns and blue lights along the coast, and the subsequent confirmation by 15 natives, of Eyre's movements as related by the three previously, he decided to proceed to Fowler's Bay and get away from the "inhospitable shore." It took them some time to get a supply of water, which was obtained by digging in the sand, in the place "laid down in the French chart" at Denial Bay, close to the shore of the ocean. From an examination of the bay, it was found that no fresh water river entered it.

He arrived at Fowler's Bay on the 18th. Owing to the heavy surf, he was not able to land until the 19th when he walked 10 miles inland. The return journey was made by another route, which brought him out near Nuyt's Reef ; he then followed the coast back to Fowlers Bay. Cannan says that for the first time along the coast, the land rising inland gave an appearance of a range of hills. His wish was to have penetrated further inland, but the danger to the ship, "not heavily found in ground tackling was too great at this season of the year," he wrote.

SUITABLE ONLY FOR WHALING

As far as his examination went, the country appeared of the same character as at Streaky Bay and Denial Bay; firm sand and occasional flat limestone rock, the lower land covered with thick scrub and the higher land tea tree, or stunted eucalyptus with patches of coarse wiry grass. About a quarter of a mile from the bottom of the bay, fresh water was obtained by scratching in the sand, and the strength of the rushes grow ing around indicated, he thought, that a plentiful supply might be obtained throughout the dry season. Summarising, Cannan in his report - possibly to the Governor - said "that Streaky Bay contains an excellent harbour, that Denial Bay affords many places of secure shelter and that part of Smoky Bay is deep and completely land locked" and then goes on to say: "Notwithstanding these advantages, I consider this part of the province, from the barrenness of the land and the scarcity of fresh water, to be totally unavailable for any purpose than that of whaling, for which, as far as I am able to judge, it seems peculiarly well adapted, and I regret that though I have examined the coast further west than those parties who proceeded me from Adelaide, I cannot add a single word that would alter their unfavorable description of the country."

It would also appear that Cannan made a separate report to the Surveyor-General. If so that report can not be traced, but the following is a condensed account from Sturt's book previously referred to. In forwarding a chart of Streaky, Smoky and Denial Bays, Cannan said that they would show the capabilities of the bays better than any description he could give. I saw, in the Surveyor General's office, a plan by J. McDoull Stuart reproduced from the plan made by Cannan. It was said that the entrance to Smoky Bay between the shoals of St. Peter and Eyre Islands was dangerous, for with any swell on, the sea breaks right across. On the west side of Denial Bay adjoining some sandhills, water was procured by digging.

FIRST VESSEL IN SMOKY BAY

Cannan believed that his boat was the first to enter Smoky Bay, and the island he found therein, he named Eyre's Island. He also found an island and reef not laid down by Flinders, south of St. Francis Island. The island is evidently that known as Cannan's Island. Another was found 10 miles west of Whidbey's Isle, and 12 miles from Greenly's Isle, probably Rocky Island on the charts today. The captain of a French whaler also reported to Cannan a sunken rock six miles north west of Point Sir Isaac, on which the sea breaks in heavy weather.

As Eyre had described the country, Cannan desisted from giving a detailed account but generalising he said, "The absence of any rise that can be called a hill from Mount Greenley to Mount Barren, the eternal limestone cliffs, the scarcity of water and grass, surely proves this coast to be the most miserable in the world, while the harbours are as good as could be wished for, and it must be owing to the deficiency of charts, that whalers do not frequent these bays, for there are generally two or three French and American vessels in the neighbourhood during the season. I found no bones or carcases of whales in Streaky, Denial or Smoky Bays, but the shores of Fowler's and Coffin's Bays, I found strewed with their remains."

Capt. Rossiter, of the Mississippi, was met in Coffin's Bay, and the captain showed Cannan his chart, remarking that there was no shelter for a vessel on this side of the Bight except Fowler's Bay. Further on in that report Cannan says, "The great extent of smooth water at Denial and Streaky Bays and a well of water at St. Peter's, dug by a sealer who lived on it many months, offers more advantages for fishing and more especially to a shore party, than are to be found anywhere else in the province" and he proceeds:- "From the general flatness of the country it may be presumed that its character does not alter a great distance inland. I observed nothing in the formation of the island differing from the main land, and I may mention that the rocks of the Isles of St. Francis present the same appearance as the Murray cliffs."

SCENE OF GULLIVER'S TRAVELS

Recently Mr. Oscar Symon, in referring to these articles on the early days of Eyre Peninsula, said to me, "Do you know that the country about St. Francis and St. Peter was the scene of Gulliver's travels?" I had to plead ignorance. So as I write this article I am wondering whether John Cannan was aware, when he was walking the 10 miles inland, he was near the country in which Dean Swift had laid down as the site of Part I, "The Land of Lilliput," in that famous and unique satirical romance of Gulliver's travels, published in 1726. The land was said to be north-west of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) and in latitude 30 degrees 2 minutes south, or about two degrees north of Fowler's or Denial Bays, or if we go by Hesse J Gerritez map of 1018, with corrections up to, say, 1628, to which reference has been made in a previous article, the distance would be considerably less, for Pieter Nuyts made his coastline further north than do the maps of the present day.

Dean Swift makes Gulliver's departure from Bristol as on May 4, 1699. This traveller on his return put his memoirs into the hands of his cousin Sympson to publish, and after seeing it in print, Gulliver wrote in 1727 a letter to the cousin, in reference to certain omissions and insertions. It is a strange coincidence that this letter of Gulliver to his cousin should be written just 100 years after Nuyts's discovery of the south coast of New Holland.

In a previous article a description of Purry's scheme (1717-1718) for a settlement of a Dutch colony was outlined, and the proposed site was shown to be somewhere in Nuyts Land (the Great Australian Bight). It was in this district that Purry pictured a possible native population of giants, not only in stature but in intelligence and knowledge, with their fortified towns and "machines of war more terrifying than, our bombs and cannons." Did Dean Swift, who wrote this book about seven or eight years after Purry had submitted his suggestion to the Dutch authorities, know about that wonderful scheme and the giant race? Is it possible that he utilised Purry's idea of the country and the races, but instead of picturing giants he made them pigmies ? I scarcely think that Dean Swift had seen Purry's memoirs, but it is remarkably strange that two writers within seven or eight years of each other should picture the inhabitants of an unknown country - one as giants and the other as pigmies.