A Voyage to Terra Australis. Matthew Flinders

by seals, a commercial speculation on a small scale might be made with advantage. The place of shelter for the vessel would be Sealers Cove, on the main land; which, though small, and apparently exposed to east winds, would be found convenient and tolerably secure: fresh water is there abundant, and a sufficiency of wood at hand to boil down any quantity of blubber likely to be procured.

      The observed latitude of the cove was 38° 50';* and the rise of tide found to be ten or eleven feet, ten hours and a quarter after the moon passed over the meridian. The flood, after sweeping south-westward along the great eastern beach, strikes off for the Seal Islands and the promontory, and then runs westward, past it, at the rate of two or three miles an hour: the ebb tide sets to the eastward. "Whenever it shall be decided," says Mr. Bass in his journal, "that the opening between this and Van Diemen's Land is a strait, this rapidity of tide, and the long south-west swell that seems to be continually rolling in upon the coast to the westward, will then be accounted for."

      [* This appears to be from 10' to 15' too little: an error which probably arose from the same cause as others before noticed.]

      Feb. 2., Mr. Bass sailed to Corner Inlet; and next day fell in with the five convicts, whom he put across to the long beach.* but was himself unable to proceed until the 9th, in consequence of foul winds. Corner Inlet is little else than a large flat, the greater part of it being dry at low water. There is a long shoal on the outside of the entrance, which is to be avoided by keeping close to the shore of the promontory; but when the tide is out the depth, except in holes, no where exceeds 2½ fathoms. A vessel drawing twelve or thirteen feet may lie safely under the high land, from which there are some large runs of most excellent water. The tide rises a foot less here than in Sealers Cove, and flows an hour later; arising, probably, from the flood leaving it in an eddy, by setting past, and not into the inlet.

      [* Nothing more had been beard of these five men., so late as 1803.]

      Feb. 9, Corner Inlet was quitted with a strong south-west wind, and Mr. Bass steered E. by N. along the shore. At the distance of five miles, he passed the mouth of a shallow opening in the low sandy beach, from which a half-moon shoal stretches three miles to the south-eastward. Four or five miles further, a lesser opening of the same kind was passed; and by noon, when the latitude was 38° 34' (probably 38° 46'), he had arrived at the point of the long beach, which in going out, had been quitted to steer for the promontory. His general course from thence was N. E. by E. along the shore, until nine o'clock, when judging the coast must begin to trend more eastwardly, he again steered E. b. N.; the wind blowing a fresh gale at W. S. W., with a following sea. At daylight, Feb. 10, the beach was distant two miles, and trending parallel to the boat's course.

      The western gale died away in the morning, and was succeeded by one from the eastward. The boat was in no condition to struggle against a foul wind; and Mr. Bass, being unwilling to return to Corner Inlet, ventured through a heavy surf and took refuge upon the beach; having first observed the latitude to be 37° 47' south.

      The country at the back of the beach consisted of dried-up swamps and barren sand hills. Some natives came down with very little hesitation, and conducted themselves amicably: they appeared never to have seen or heard of white people before.

      (Atlas, Plate VIII.)

      Feb. 11. the foul wind had ceased to blow, and the clouds threatened another gale from the south-west. So soon as there was sufficient daylight, the boat was launched, and at four the same afternoon anchored under the Rain Head. Mr. Bass was kept there till the 14th in the evening; when a strong breeze sprung up suddenly at south-west, and he sailed immediately, passing Cape Howe at ten o'clock. By noon of the 15th, he had reached Two-fold Bay, where the latitude was observed to be 36° 53' south;* and having ascertained that Snug Cove, on its north-west side, afforded shelter for shipping, he steered northward, and passed Mount Dromedary soon after midnight. At noon, Feb. 16, Mr. Bass landed upon a small island lying under the shore to the south-east of the Pigeon House, to examine a pole which he had before observed, and supposed might have been set up as a signal by shipwrecked people; but it proved to be nothing more than the dead stump of a tree, much taller and more straight than the others. He sailed next morning; but the wind hung so much in the north and east quarters that he was forced successively into Jervis Bay, Shoals Haven, and Port Hacking; and it was not until the 24th at night, that our adventurous discoverer terminated his dangerous and fatiguing voyage, by entering within the heads of Port Jackson.

      [* The true latitude of the mouth of Two-fold Bay is 37° 5', showing an error of 12' to the north, nearly similar to what has been specified in the observations near Wilson's Promontory.]

      It should be remembered, that Mr. Bass sailed with only six weeks provisions; but with the assistance of occasional supplies of petrels, fish, seal's flesh, and a few geese and black swans, and by abstinence, he had been enabled to prolong his voyage beyond eleven weeks. His ardour and perseverance were crowned, in despite of the foul winds which so much opposed him, with a degree of success not to have been anticipated from such feeble means. In three hundred miles of coast, from Port Jackson to the Ram Head, he added a number of particulars which had escaped captain Cook; and will always escape any navigator in a first discovery, unless he have the time and means of joining a close examination by boats, to what may be seen from the ship.

      Our previous knowledge of the coast scarcely extended beyond the Ram Head; and there began the harvest in which Mr. Bass was ambitious to place the first reaping hook. The new coast was traced three hundred miles; and instead of trending southward to join itself to Van Diemen's Land, as captain Furneaux had supposed, he found it, beyond a certain point, to take a direction nearly opposite, and to assume the appearance of being exposed to the buffetings of an open sea. Mr. Bass, himself, entertained no doubt of the existence of a wide strait, separating Van Diemen's Land from New South Wales; and he yielded with the greatest reluctance to the necessity of returning, before it was so fully ascertained as to admit of no doubt in the minds of others. But he had the satisfaction of placing at the end of his new coast, an extensive and useful harbour, surrounded with a country superior to any other known in the southern parts of New South Wales.

      A voyage expressly undertaken for discovery in an open boat, and in which six hundred miles of coast, mostly in a boisterous climate, was explored, has not, perhaps, its equal in the annals of maritime history. The public will award to its high spirited and able conductor, alas! now no more, an honourable place in the list of those whose ardour stands most conspicuous for the promotion of useful knowledge.

      FLINDERS. 1798.

      During the time that Mr. Bass was absent on his expedition in the whale boat, the Francis schooner was again sent with captain Hamilton to the wreck of his ship the Sydney Cove; to bring up what remained of the cargo at Preservation Island, and the few people who were left in charge. On this occasion I was happy enough to obtain governor Hunter's permission to embark in the schooner; in order to make such observations serviceable to geography and navigation, as circumstances might afford; and Mr. Reed, the master, was directed to forward these views as far as was consistent with the main objects of his voyage.

      (Atlas. Plate VIII.)

      Feb. 1, we sailed out of Port Jackson with a fair wind; and on the following noon, the observed latitude was 35° 42', being 14' south of account. I prevailed on Mr. Reed to stand in for the land, which was then visible through the haze; and at sunset, we reached into Bateman Bay.* When the two rocky islets in the middle of the bay bore S. by W. ¼ W., a short mile, we had 8 fathoms water, and 6 fathoms a mile further in. The north head is steep with a rock lying off it; but Bateman Bay falls back too little from the line of the coast to afford shelter against winds from the eastward. The margin of the bay is mostly a beach, behind which lie sandy, rocky hills of moderate elevation.

      [* The bearings in the following account are corrected, as usual, for the variation; but I am sorry to say that the steering compasses of the schooner proved to be bad, and there was no azimuth compass on board.]

      In the morning of the 3rd, we steered S. by W. along the shore; and saw, in latitude about 35* 58', and eight or nine miles from the south point of Bateman Bay, a small opening like a river running south-westward. It was here that Mr. Bass found a lagoon, with extensive salt swamps behind it, and observed