"A cake baked in the ashes, which in Australia is usually styled a damper." [Footnote]: "This appellation is said to have originated somehow with Dampier, the celebrated navigator."
1867. F. Hochstetter, `New Zealand,' p. 284:
"`Damper' is a dough made from wheat-flour and water without yeast, which is simply pressed flat, and baked in the ashes; according to civilized notions, rather hard of digestion, but quite agreeable to hungry woodmen's stomachs."
1872. C. H. Eden, `My Wife and I in Queensland,' p. 20:
"At first we had rather a horror of eating damper, imagining it to be somewhat like an uncooked crumpet. Experience, however, showed it to be really very good. Its construction is simple, and is as follows. Plain flour and water is mixed on a sheet of bark, and then kneaded into a disc some two or three inches thick to about one or two feet in diameter, great care to avoid cracks being taken in the kneading. This is placed in a hole scraped to its size in the hot ashes, covered over, and there left till small cracks caused by the steam appear on the surface of its covering. This is a sign that it is nearly done, and in a few minutes the skilful chef will sound it over with his "Wedges of damper (or bread baked in hot ashes) were cut from time to time from great circular flat loaves of that palatable and wholesome but somewhat compressed-looking bread."
1890. C. Lumholtz, `Among Cannibals,' p. 32:
"Damper is the name of a kind of bread made of wheat flour and water. The dough is shaped into a flat round cake, which is baked in red-hot ashes. This bread looks very inviting, and tastes very good as long as it is fresh, but it soon becomes hard and dry."
<hw>Damson, Native</hw>, <i>n</i>. called also Native Plum, an Australian shrub, <i>Nageia spinulosa</i>, F. v. M., <i>N.O. Coniferae</i>.
1889. J. H. Maiden, `Useful Native Plants,' p. 53:
"Native Damson or Native Plum. This shrub possesses edible fruit, something like a plum, hence its vernacular names. The Rev. Dr. Woolis tells me that, mixed with jam of the Native Currant (<i>Leptomeria acida</i>), it makes a very good pudding."