All The Representations Of The Ship's Doctor With A View Of Increasing For The Time Being The Quantity Of Water Supplied, And Diminishing The Ration When Cooler Latitudes Were Reached, Were Useless."* (* Peron, 1824 Edition 2 7.) It Is Not Wonderful That Scurvy Broke Out Again With Increased Virulence.

It is more pleasant to turn to the somewhat prolonged stay made in southern Tasmania.

At this time, it should be recollected, there was no European settlement on the beautiful and fertile island which then bore the name of the old Dutch governor of Java, Anthony Van Diemen. Indeed, it was only so recently as 1798 that Flinders and Bass, in the Norfolk, had demonstrated that it really was an island, by sailing round it. On previous charts, principally founded on that of Cook - the map attached to the history of Bougainville's voyage (1771) is particularly interesting - it had been represented as a long projection from the mainland, shaped like a pig's snout. Not only Abel Tasman, the discoverer (1642), but the French explorers, Marion-Dufresne (1772) and Dentrecasteaux (1791), and the English navigators, Cook, Furneaux, Cox, and Bligh, had visited it.* (* See Backhouse Walker, Early Tasmania, published by the Royal Society of Tasmania, Hobart 1902.) But as yet the European had merely landed for fresh water, or had explored the south coast very slightly as a matter of curiosity, and the aboriginal race was still in unchallenged possession. Had Baudin been furnished with instructions to look for a place for French settlement, very little diligence and perspicacity would have enabled him to fix upon a spot suitable to the point of perfection before the English at Port Jackson knew of his whereabouts in these seas at all.

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