Arabanoo looks for his family

Arabanoo is taken back down the harbour to look for his Cammeraigal family and friends. Collins writes, ‘He looked anxiously around him … Not a vestige on the sand was to be found of human foot … not a living person was anywhere to be met with. It seemed as if in flying from contagion they had left the dead to bury the dead (from small pox). He lifted up his hands and eyes in silent agony for some time: at last he exclaimed ‘All dead! All dead!’ and then hung his head in mournful silence.’ He himself dies, probably of smallpox, later the same year. Karskens, p. 373.

  • Distant View of Sydney, Courtesy of National Library of Australia