If The "Entrance" To Port Phillip Was "Observed" On March
30, Still More Incomprehensible Is It That The Ship Did Not Enter, That
The Fact Was Not Mentioned In The Log, That The Latitude And Longitude
Were Not Taken, And That The Artists Neglected So Excellent An
Opportunity.
But that is not all.
Freycinet, the man who was not there, and whose
narrative was not published till thirteen years after the voyage, has
further information to give us. He states, on whose authority we are not
told, that the country observed along part of this coast, between Cap
Suffren and Cap Marengo (that is, between Cape Patton and Cape Franklin),
presented "un aspect riant et fertile." The book containing these
descriptive words was, the reader will recollect, published in 1815. Now,
Flinders' volumes, A Voyage to Terra Australis, were published in 1814.
There he had described the country which he saw from inside the port as
presenting "a pleasing and in many places a fertile appearance." "Un
aspect riant et fertile" and "a pleasing and fertile appearance" are
identical terms. It may be a mere coincidence, though the comparison of
dates is a little startling. All the words which one can use are, as
Boileau said, "in the dictionaries"; every writer selects and arranges
them to suit his own ideas. But when Flinders said that the country
around Port Phillip looked "pleasing and fertile," he had seen it to
advantage. On May 1 he had climbed Station Peak, one of the You-Yang
group of mountains, and saw stretched at his feet the rich Werribee
Plains, the broad miles of fat pastures leading away to Mount Macedon,
and the green rolling lands beyond Geelong, opening to the Victorian
Western District.
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