Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/443

 THE KANGAROO. 329 lieutenant Philip Gidley King, the second lieutenant of the 1788 Sirius, who is at Norfolk Island, is a very steady, good officer, xo July. He, too, is cut off from all society, and is in a situation that will require patience and perseverance, both of which he possesses, with great merit in the service as an officer. As such' I beg leave to King recom- recommend him to your lordship. The rank of master and com- mander he well earned in the late war, and I should be very happy if he now attained it thro' your lordship.* The last note sent to Sydney informed him of certain presents shipped on board the Alexander for friends in Presents for England, including some birds from Lord Howe Island for *»<>«»«• Lady Chatham. The kangurroot for your lordship is the largest I have yet seen. The first As it stands, it measures five feet nine inches. This extraordinary g^t^Jo^ animal makes the same use of its fore feet as a monkey does. ^"^Jand- Major Ross hsus one alive. It is young, very tame, and comes to you and embraces your hands with the fore feet. The female was killed, and the young one remained by the body. The Sirius being under orders to sail for the Cape of Good ^^^^ ^^ Hope as soon as she could be got ready for sea, Phillip pre- pared a despatch for the Home Secretary on the 28th Sep- tember, to be forwarded by Captain Hunter from the Cape. His original intention was to send the ship northward — ^to Savu or the Navigators' Islands — for live stock ; but finding 1791 ; post, p. 368. + The spelling of the word kangaroo appears to have been an open ques- tion at this time. Phillip asaally spelt it in its present form. Captain Cook, who introduced it to the English language, said : — |* This animal is called by the natives kanguroo." — Hawkesworth, vol. iii, p. 578. ^ The word is so spelled in Phillip's Voyage in the text, but in the illustration it appears as "kangooroo." Collins, who paid some attention to the native language, spells the word kangooroo in his list of native names ; p. 614. Tench states that the word was unknown to the natives about the settle- ment : — ** Kanguroo was a name unknown to them for any animal, until we introduced it. When I showed Colbee [a native] the cows brought out in the Gorgon, he asked me if they were kanguroos ? " — Complete Account, p. 171." This statement seems to be confirmed by the list of native names for animals given by Collins. It does not mention the kangaroo as a name in use among the natives at Port Jackson, but specifies the two kinds known to them — the patagorang, a large grey one, and the baegary, a small red one. He states (p. 609) that "the dialect spoken by the natives at Sydney differs entirely from that left us by Captain Cook of the people with whom he had intercourse to the northward, about Endeavour River." Digitized by Google
 * The rank of master and commander was conferred on King in March,