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.
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