Just want to point out that it was only about 100 years ago humans discovered that galaxies exist. Good old Edwin Hubble doing observations from Palomar in a Southern California sky that was still good for seeing.
To be clear, people have discovered galaxies earlier, but didn’t understand their true nature. Hence, the discussed galaxy was first known as “Andromeda Nebula”.
And anyone to anyone sailing on one of those first ships to Australia, the SMC and LMC would have been really obvious in the sky. Sure, they're only dwarf galaxies, but still.
