But When He
Reached The Anchorage He Found That Baudin Had Already Sailed Away.
"The
abandonment of our companions in the midst of these vast gulfs, where so
many perils might be encountered, had been a subject of consternation on
board Le Geographe," Peron records.
It really was unaccountable
behaviour; even worse than that of the abandonment of Boullanger and his
boat's crew on the east coast of Tasmania in the previous March. A
commander who treated those among his subordinates who were sustaining
the most dangerous and exacting part of the work with so little
consideration, can hardly have maintained their confidence, or deserved
it.
The Casuarina, making all sail for Nepean Bay westward, sighted the
leading ship in Investigator Strait. 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. To the student of the history of exploration,
however, Port Lincoln is interesting even beyond the measure of its
beauty; for there, in 1841, Sir John Franklin, then governor of Tasmania,
erected at his own cost a monument to the honour of Flinders, his old
commander, from whom he imbibed that passion for exploration which was in
due time to place his own name imperishably amongst the glorious company
of great English seamen.
Peron himself experienced the cross-grained temper of the commander
during the visit of the ships to Sharks Bay. This was the scene of
Dampier's descent upon the Western Australian coast in 1699, in the
rickety little Roebuck. It was here that his men dined off sharks' flesh,
and "took care that no waste should be made of it, but thought it, as
things stood, good entertainment."* The bay received from Dampier, on
account of the feast, the name it has ever since borne. (* Dampier's men
were unprejudiced in matters of gastronomy, but their taste in fish was
not to their discredit. Shark's flesh, especially when young, is, there
is reason to believe, excellent eating. During some weeks in a recent
summer, when what we may term "orthodox" fish was scarce, a fashionable
Australian sea-side hotel was regularly supplied with young
shark - "gummy" - by a fisherman, for whose veracity the author can vouch.
Neither proprietor, chef, nor guests knew what it was, and all were well
fed and happy.)
Some of the French sailors who had been ashore returned in a wild state
of alarm on account of giants whom they professed to have seen - men of
extraordinary strength and stature, they reported, with long black
beards, armed with enormous spears and shields, who ran at a furious
pace, brandishing their weapons and giving utterance to fearful yells.
"However extravagant these assertions might appear," said the incredulous
naturalist, "it was necessary to collect precise information on the
subject." The scientific Ulysses regarded the reputed Cyclops with a
calculating scepticism. Had Polyphemus been at hand, Peron would have
politely requested him to permit himself to be weighed and measured, and
would have written an admirable monograph on his solitary optic.
There were, he considered, some reasons for thinking that a race of men
of heroic proportions inhabited this western part of the continent.
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