Solomeo is a village in Umbria, settled more than 500 years before Captain Cook courted the reticent Gweagal people in what would come to be called Botany Bay. (Spears hurled at the English during this first encounter are still on display at Cambridge University, despite requests for their return.) While Cook wondered in his journal whether the ‘very dark or black’ colour of the men he saw from a distance ‘was the real colou...