On Kangaroo Island, Baudin scoffs at Péron’s delight at having bagged a few molluscs, two small lizards and half-a-dozen sea-snail shells like those the sailors have gathered by the hundreds as curios. He is convinced that Péron knows nothing about marine biology, and probably very little about zoology in general. Certainly, it seems he can’t tell a periwinkle from a penny whistle. The captain is increasingly resentful, too, of Péron’s tendency to abandon a task before it’s completed, always with some long-winded but unconvincing excuse, leaving others to finish his work for him.
Heading north on leaving the island, Baudin writes, ‘I learnt that Citizen Péron, the most thoughtless and most wanting in foresight of everyone aboard, had persuaded two others to cross the island from east to west, assuring them that it was a league wide [5.5 kilometres] at the very most, that he had made certain of this from an examination of the chart, and that consequently they had much more time than they needed for the excursion he was proposing. To persuade them further, he promised Citizen Guichenot [a gardener] a good collection of plants that they would undoubtedly come upon, and Citizen Petit [an artist] great variety of entertainment, a prospect he found extremely pleasant.’1
Landing by longboat, the trio set off, intending to use a tall tree atop a hill as a landmark to find their way back. After four hours of trekking in the hot sun, Guichenot said to Péron, ‘The league you spoke of is becoming very long, and I think it’s time to go back, for we must have as far to go to rejoin the longboat as we have come since our departure.’2 Péron assured him they could shorten the distance by heeding to the left, and the others dutifully followed.
Baudin continues: ‘As they went on, several natives appeared, armed with spears. At first they were frightened, having as their defence a poor sort of gun they had borrowed from the ship’s steward, and that they had found no longer worked. As the natives continued to pursue them, they agreed that it would be better to deceive them with an assured bearing than to run away, and decided to go and meet them.
‘The natives likewise stopped, but seeing that the others were still advancing, they advanced too.’3
At last, the two groups stood eyeing each other off, a few paces apart. Perhaps, during that stand-off, the Frenchmen were mindful of Baudin’s order that when encountering native peoples to ‘carefully avoid any unpleasant dealings with them and try, on the contrary, to make them understand, by gestures of friendship or the sight of the presents I intend for them, how peaceful your intentions are’.4 More likely, though, they were frozen with fear. That is, until a man they took to be the leader of the warriors began yelling at them. They didn’t understand what he was saying but there was no doubt they were being told to bugger off, which they did, with all speed, arriving at the far shore of the island early that afternoon.
‘On this occasion the men missed the finest opportunity that had arisen to communicate with the natives,’ Baudin writes, ‘and the artist, who I had sent expressly to draw those who could be approached, did nothing but a view of the village in which dwelt the people we had encountered on our first landing.
‘After leaving the natives, the men set about looking for shells, and brought back several that were absolutely the same as those that Le Naturaliste had found and collected in great numbers. This consideration alone should have been sufficient to make them think of returning, but the leader of the party – the citizen who, until now, has caused us nothing but trouble and anxiety when he has been ashore with no one to watch over and guide him – preferred to waste the remaining time roaming along the shore rather than return. Thus they only started back when it was certain that they would not reach the boat before the time fixed for departure, even supposing that they had taken the most direct route.’5
By nightfall they were hopelessly lost, without food and water, and eventually found their way back, blundering through the dark, courtesy of blind luck. On his return, Péron told Baudin he was so exhausted he could hardly speak or stand, and would not be in a fit state to report on the day’s findings until after a long rest.
Guichenot the gardener was in a worse state, unsurprisingly, having obligingly lugged back to the waiting longboat the 15 kilos of useless shells Péron had painstakingly collected but refused to carry.
On another occasion, Péron, looking for shellfish, ventured perilously close to breakers crashing at the edge of a reef. Absorbed in his quest, he failed to notice a rogue wave that broke over the reef with such force that it picked him up and dragged him across the jagged rocks, leaving him cut and bruised, and his clothes torn to shreds.
‘This is the third escapade of this nature our learned naturalist has been on,’ Baudin writes, ‘but it will also be the last, for he shall not go ashore again unless I myself am in the same boat. And the limits I shall set on his excursion will not be broad enough to allow him to delay the boat’s departure or to stray too far.’6
Presumably as an example of Péron’s petulance, compounding his recklessness, Baudin writes that one day at sea ‘we caught a fairly large shark, and it was a great distraction, particularly for the first time. Little accustomed to such a sight, they all wanted to get close to it. But when it had thrashed its tail from side to side a few times, they were less eager to go near.
‘Citizen Péron and Lharidon, the surgeon, however, were less easily discouraged than the others, and when the sailor had tied the shark down firmly, they both set to work upon it. I was far from foreseeing that this poor creature would become the cause of a very serious dispute between the two anatomists, each of whom wanted the glory of dissecting it.
‘But finally, as I was strolling around the quarter deck, I saw Citizen Péron coming to me, dripping all over with blood, to complain that Monsieur Lharidon had snatched the shark’s heart from him. He would not go on dissecting after such behaviour.
‘I did my best not to laugh at the complaint, which “Doctor” Péron considered very grave. But to console him, I promised him that the next one we caught should be his alone and that he could depend upon it that no one should touch it except with his permission. Péron was comforted by this promise and Lharidon was left the undisturbed possessor of the shark’s heart.’7
In his 1870 book The Last of the Tasmanians, historian James Bonwick tells of an encounter between a Tasmanian Aboriginal family and men of the Baudin expedition, in which François Péron and Louis de Freycinet are entranced by a beautiful Aboriginal girl named Oura Oura.
The family, says Bonwick, consisted of a father and mother, a young man, a boy and girl both aged about five, and ‘a belle sauvage of 16 or 17’.
‘Upon making acquaintance with this distinguished party, Péron, like a true man of gallantry, drew off his glove while bowing to the beauty, preparatory to his offering the salutation of refined society. The fair one of the forest was struck with horror and alarm at the facility with which her admirer apparently peeled off his skin, and was not easily relieved of her fears for his safety.’8
The Frenchmen were invited to share a meal with Oura Oura and her family. Péron entertained his hosts by singing the ‘Marseillaise’, and by the girl’s reaction to his performance it seemed to him that she was as enamoured with him as he with her, judging by ‘the softness of her looks, and their affectionate, sparkling expression’.9
She was, like her family, ‘perfectly naked, and appeared little to suspect that one should find in that absolute nudity anything immodest or indecent’.10
But just as Péron was sure he had won a heart, Louis de Freycinet sat down beside the girl and she instantly switched her attention to him. And when the time came for the Frenchmen to return to their ship, escorted by their newfound friends, Oura Oura walked to the beach arm in arm with Freycinet.
‘How affecting must have been the parting,’ Bonwick writes. ‘The Frenchmen entered their boats in profound despondency’, while the Aborigines indicated by signs that they wished the Frenchmen would return to visit them some day. ‘They even lighted a large fire upon a neighbouring hill that, when the winds had driven the vessel miles away, the column of smoke might indicate a spot so sacred to peace and friendship.’11
For Oura Oura, who was at all times safe in the company of her family, the encounter probably meant no more than a harmless flirtation with some curious white men, and she had gifts to remember them by – a handkerchief, a red feather and a tomahawk. For the Frenchmen it was a close encounter of the romantic kind, and Le Géographe sailed away with at least two broken hearts on board. It’s an acute case of la douleur exquise – the exquisite pain of wanting something you cannot have.