But Baudin Did Not Wait Even Then. He Kept Le Geographe On Her Course, Under A Full Head Of Sail, Without Permitting The Casuarina To Come Up And Report, Or Inquiring After The Success Of Her Work.

The two ships soon lost sight of each other.

Next day Baudin, evidently realising the enormity of his folly, veered round, and returned to Nepean Bay. But as the Casuarina had kept on westward during the night, in a frantic endeavour to catch her leader, the two vessels crossed far apart and out of vision. They did not meet again for fourteen days, when both lay at anchor in King George's Sound.

It is not wonderful that Freycinet confessed that he was "astonished" at Baudin's manoeuvres. They were scarcely those of a rational being, to say nothing of a commander responsible for the safety of two ships and the lives of their people. The company on the smaller vessel endured severe privations. They were reduced to a ration of three ounces of biscuit per man per day, and to a mere drink of water; and the ship herself sustained such severe damage from heavy seas that, said Freycinet, had he been delayed a few hours in reaching King George's Sound, he would have been compelled to run her ashore to prevent her from foundering. "Judge of the horror of my position," he wrote, and he certainly did not exaggerate when he used that term; for the coast along which he ran for safety is one of the most hopelessly barren in the whole world, offering to a stranded mariner neither sustenance, shelter, nor means of deliverance.

The only feature of much interest pertaining to the geographical work of the expedition in the region of the gulfs, is the high opinion formed by Peron of Port Lincoln - called Port Champagny on the Terre Napoleon charts. The port has not played a large part in the subsequent development of Australia, but Flinders, who discovered it and named it after the chief town of his native county, and the French of Baudin's expedition, who were the second people to enter it, thought very highly of its beauty and value. Peron spoke of it as a "magnificent port," in which all the navies of Europe could float, and concluded two pages of description with the words: "Worthy rival of Port Jackson, Port Lincoln is, in all respects, one of the finest in the world; and of all those which we have discovered [yet they had not discovered a single port of any kind!], whether to the south, the west, or the north of New Holland, it appears to be, I repeat, the best adapted to receive a European colony." After many years of settlement, Port Lincoln boasts of fewer than a thousand inhabitants; for though the glowing language of admiration concerning its beauty and convenience written by Flinders and Peron were fully justified, a back country too arid to support a large population has prevented it from attaining to great importance among the harbours of Australia.

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