Captain James Cook had already come and gone, “discovering” the place, but Phillip’s group would be the first European settlers. At a spot near what is now Sydney, within the fine natural harbor there, his penal arks put ashore 736 convicts, 74 pigs, 29 sheep, 19 goats, 5 rabbits, and 9 horses. The horses included two stallions, four mares, and three foals. Until that day there was no record, either fossil or historic, of members of the genus Equus in Australia. Nor were there any oral traditions (none shared with the world so far, anyway) of Hendra virus outbreaks among aboriginal
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