"I caused an inscription to be engraven upon a sheet of copper, and set it up on a stout post at the head of the cove, which I named Memory Cove, and further to commemorate our loss, I gave each of the six islands nearest to Cape Catastrophe the name of one of the seamen."
Flinders sailed up the gulf, which he called Spencer's Gulf, and had a long look towards the interior from the summit of Mount Brown.
The Gulf of St. Vincent then fell to his share to discover, and shortly afterwards he met with the French ship LE GÉOGRAPHE Captain Baudin; says Flinders:—
"We veered round as LE GÉOGRAPHE was passing, so as to keep our broadside to her, lest the flag of truce should be a deception, and having come to the wind on the other tack, a boat was hoisted out, and I went on board the French ship, which had also hove to."
The two Captains exchanged passports and information, but Flinders was afterwards much annoyed to find on the publication of M. Péron's book, that all his late discoveries had been rechristened with French names, and, in fact, his work ignored completely. Parting from the French ship in Encounter Bay, as he named it, the English navigator sailed for Port Jackson.
Suddenly coming to the Harbour of Port Phillip, Flinders thinks he has entered Port Western, but finds his mistake next morning; then congratulates himself upon having made a new and most useful discovery, he says:—
"There I was again in error, this place, as I afterwards learned in Port
Jackson had been discovered ten weeks before by Lieutenant John Murray,
in command of the LADY NELSON. He had given to it the name of Port
Phillip, and to the rocky point on the east side of the entrance Point
Nepean."
On the 9th May, the INVESTIGATOR anchors in Sydney Cove, and again left in company with the LADY NELSON, on the morning Of July 22nd, for the examination of the east coast, making many discoveries before reaching Torres Straits that had escaped Captain Cook, among others Port Curtis and Port Bowen.
The LADY NELSON in consequence of being disabled left the INVESTIGATOR on the east coast, and returned to Port Jackson.
We will again take up Flinders' narrative during his examination of the Gulf of Carpentaria, which had not been visited since the days of the Dutch ships. The first point Flinders mentions finding corroborative of the fidelity of their charts is the entrance to the Batavia River and there is no doubt that this spot is indicated by the words "fresh water," in the map accredited to Tasman, as there is a capital boat entrance of two fathoms to this stream, and at a comparatively short distance from the mouth of the water at low tide is quite fresh. This river heads from a plateau of springs, a tableland covered with scrubby heath, and intersected by scores of running gullies, boggy and impassable; in fact, the same country as caused such trouble to the Jardine brothers when they explored this shore of the Gulf.