THE WOMAN NAMES OF AUSTRALIA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2811, 29 January 1908, Page 74

THE WOMAN NAMES OF AUSTRALIA.

, Bt-, Jessie Mackat. | Are tthere^ many who have shared withme ,the strange fascination of mapgazing ? Something- liVes ; , under* the; ordered lines and letters; some' spirit unmechanical Hides under the set diagram form. Sometimes it- is the. eye of memory ,that unconsciously invests the waving line of creek or river with livingcoolness, the feathered shading of peak or down with'i softest green _ of. austerest white... Sometimes it is the eye of fancy that invests the- blank white with the spell of r desert history wherein, Solomon or 'Zenobia lifted' the sceptre, or that haloes, the single name of; a ruined city with- the 'ghostly glories of Punt or' Nineveh.- Sometimes it is the fascination Ol the past, where men bave lived and loye'd and passed to "oblivion;' sometimes* ,it is' the dream of the future, where man has yet*t6 carve a home amid unknown marvels of science , and , late-discovered .power) for me, the >ncie"rit ".nanies "were always best", as "they followed the lines of. Palestine, of Greece,, or." of Asia^ Minor. "" But a^.-'da.yaiirig" of national , pride; came" with 'the.full-flowing^curvjßSof' NjS%' A ~2iealand.r'i£Be] > f-^the \ arro'w-stfaight " lugStKofTthe ridrtn/'pointing'td'Reinga an - Maria Van Diemen,' each' name a poem; tbe "-wo^ah-?'waisted j. south, .' its " rounded softness 'symmetrically- .broken.- -by >the; Sounds pf ,Otago and- MaTlborough V Arid e\ian yet it seems to me that Aotea was shapeg by Nature for her high" destiny, as .grand' souls are cased in such goodly forms as those of John Milton and Francis " Willard. ,For New Zealand is certainly the most beautiful map in the world.,' But' Australia had neither -the ■• sea- . f raven grace of rform nor the halo ,of istory. New. hard, squarerbuilt, neithur < Nature nor History had blessed her in any, visible way. Long aftfer, however j a curious pathetic trait evolved, from the nondescript or even repellant "character- of a map 'that could punctuate itself with , such linguistic -horrors r as-Wagga, Wagga;-. Mudgee, and D,ubboj . . The' trait ; was > this : ; the strange frequency of women's names," especially in the lonely. de.serfc marches of exploration. ' Here, where no Governor, no -Premier, no mighty' man 1 of any description would have thanked the traveller who used his name — here the lonely pioneer left other < names that fame never knew — home names or love names that are the last to stay in burning brain . and .failing' heart. .-They seldom explained these names as they wrote tliem . feebly, and" 'wearily- in ,th© very Valleyof the Shadow, of J)eath.' - Who were, these, Katherines. -and - Nellies ' and, Ediths, .and' "Floras -whose ..names ace • -written across • the, - burning < antipodean •. deserts on-c"well -and 'bill j arid, creek? Whose memory lightened the ,, last hours, oi despair .or^ stood for. faith • and -home' amid "the luring phantoms." of mirage? Few -knew, and _f,ewer . told, so far as. the ordinary reader may find among the current annals of Australian exploration. _ _'_ One "outlying name; indeed stands put ;

in all the glamour of romance, for -weTt . •we know that Maria Island, east ,of Tas-. mania,- was named for Maria Van TDiemen by Tasman \in. the middle of the seventeenth century.. And "if that ancient, • romance" is too dear for • some reader to part ■with,~gentle"'fjiend,- > look no. further, for mine is "the ungracious task~'o;T shattering it. The lonely 'l)utch maiden whose welcome to'her -^ailot, ihero has fired* the fancy of jpoet . and -^as not, indeed, all myth ; Ibut she ;Was 'the stately,. befrilled 1 wife — noVthe daughter — of" Van . Diemen, ' the Governor of. Batavia, who , despatched' Tasman . on. his quest. . Abel ; Tasman, whose*, punctilious loyalty, fias ' .fixed for all time the names of tKe.nobte ' Maria and her, spouse, was himself^ a' " married man with a- \rell-gro\yn daughter^ ' at the* .lime of his celebrated voyages in - the" southern "seas. : Thus Vanishes * the island romance, which even the up-to-date - Kipling '6omm'emorales " in the -soag- of Hobart— : - . ■ ; . Mail's, love first found.me; man's hate, madsj-- me helli * s "-- . , •'," . " , - ■-^a. saying, which i is all 'too _tr,uly verified in "records" ,6f the^* ghastly <con I yicV,tragedies"r '.enacted' dn^MariarjTsljtnd.'l" ,' ""' ,' '"" * The Victorias ~- J i ell. tlifeir own tale, as. "also- does Adelaide,' founded'-,' during a the -Seven, years'- .reign" of {the fourth. -and 1 - Ms' gejitla-^German" spouse.. yv - '-. i -A ; classic, association' clings round the-, square- tort^Chaiiotte Raters Station, in South Australia.; This 't was named after' ' Lady Charlotte . Uacon, who Was ■ the' lanthe celebrated, by .Byron. * A son of | Lady -Chkrlotte^fesided 'there when Ernest 1 Giles, the noted explorer, halted there in 1872, and praised the fertility . and peace >of this oasis' .in the "desert. -,-... \'\ A pleasant pen had -tfiis Ernest Giles, * and a 'facile .turn* for comic-rhyming. He was one on whom .Destiny smiled': where others, like St'urt. the father of Australian exploration, found ghastly waste, mirage," ,and misery, he was always lighting on „lovely, lonely places, to' which he gave. " names in keeping.' Glen Edith was -called for a favoui'ite' niece ; but no explanation ,is given of Louisa Greek, or Mount- ! Marie and Mount "Jeanie, of Zoo's Glen, and the lonely -commanding Mount' Olga, sputli of Lake Amadens. Blanche Cup ,he seems -to , have found named — a strange lakelet, , common ' in" that region, lying in,; the, "topi of"- 'a -Kill. • TJnKke m,6st ,of£ ' the "unfriendly ' waters >in thai' salt' ?deser£f/331anche'Cup is drinkable.' ' Is thirs Blanche: ■Cuo*, named :,,after .the^lady uof Blanches*' I Water, north-east i>of Torrens", "discovered-. joy. Mt' Jßabbage,? ~- Or* has' At; any •cad-,' Lake /Blanche," " the same "region? -"Andrwtiich-bf'lihem* ;. claims affinity" with ? 'Cape'»Bla'nche", on" the . e'ast;of." the Australian "Bight ?v? v ' " : * ' '.Stuart; the "companion, arid of the t unfortunate Sturtj named the'Kathe-,' rjiie> 'River -in the Northern Territory, the -lower covtratfjof' a-fitream called-»by Leich'-' hardt Flying Fox ,Greek;' but.'of v the "Nellie Creek, the* Mary' > Creek,, [ the 1 -Flora -Creek/ all in the same .burning--' j qorthern region, - ,we " kiiow nothing. In the south and centre of the continent are -two Mount Floras, • by the -way; and the . < Margaret \ Rivers have been similarly duplicated. --, ■ /* ■ ' *~ , - Did the '-Alice Springs owe their naming to the lucky.- explorer Sir Thomas "Mit-,. chell. who named the- Alice River in' the Barcoo basin? - i * > , ■ ' It was in 1873 that the Eva -Springs named by that stout blazer of the" track, Colonel Warhurton. Far south of- the Kimberley goldfields, in Western ' Australia, 'a thousand miles 7 from anywhere, a solitary point breaks' the- dead -wHite of the map— Joanna Spring; that and nothing more. A story it must have, this lonely Joanna Spring, ■■a story of sorrow and loss, one would confidently surmise, but it is a story -that heretofore I have sought in vain, i Is Port > Augusta, -far up Spencer Gulf, the bistpric ~ Augusta of Augas and - others, the, Augusta founded- in 1830 which was the starting goinfc of all early South Coaat explorers, the, Augusta be-, side which Melbourne is twice the mighty -which "in ; truth . it' .is ?s? s jAnd-j" this, leads up to a. parting reminiscence of that great South Coast — the story" of"'an Itaperial ' name" .-which , >was once .'linked : lwith',Spnth -Austral jaV, bat" which' no -Eng-^ lish -map. hast ever recorded -no*- ever shall; record., „ A strarige fate 'has J ?be'en laid' upon ..the FrWeli ,to --follow hot- foot on* jtihej'pieneef ' 'trkck* of "'Englishmen,--, to; reach for ithe prize and" to, gra^p, air. Jso._. it )ias" been .in India, on the "Nile, r jh' Canada, in New Zealand. 1 " "And they, - we^ close on the* heels" of Captain Cook, as later on those of, the v ill-starred <b"uf* heroic Flinders. Flinders > was sent to these waters,* alreaTdy Tiriown to hini and his comrade Bass, to exolore Terra Ax&-' tralis during the brief and' hollowof Amiens .which broke the Napoleonic war in two 107 years ago. The geograpfiers; of the eighteenth century, be it remembered, drew lines of demarcation* between New Holland— which , practically t covered what we now call" Queenslandand New South Wales— and Terra Aus-^ tralis, which .embraced whatever else" might form part oi the continent. .While Flinders- Jay in unjust durance at Mauritius for- six • years' .his/ French captors thought that the South of Terra -Aub- ' tralis was now. their own, hy right of the later voyages of their captains, notably of the vain and unvera'cious Baudin. / Accordingly, on French maps of the time the South Eastern coast of South Australia appeared as Terre Napoleon, while* Spencer. Gulf > and - St. . Vincent Gulf ; figured- respectively'^s;jKolphe Bonapafter and. Golphe. Josephine. V Exactly, a" . cen- ; tury ago the .vain title was' given, and it, lapsed almost" "as soon-elapsed is- sud-^ denly as,tHe ,glory. "ot-the ill-starred Empress wiEose nam'fit commemorated. -.- ." "Strange, to think "that the, charted wliite , of Australia, has darkened into -being in! ■one brief- century ! " Strange ; and :»ot;a . little -touching is_ the curious frequency, of women's names across ""the" 'page* — a premonitory "wave of the time spirit', was' it?, a symbol". 6f the shared dominion that is dawning across the' Tasman Sea? Suqh one may a,lrnos£' take it fet'hfik'' '