SECTION III.
AUSTRALIAN LIFE AND PRODUCTS.
CHAPTER X.
Heroes of Exploration.
Tragic Stories—Flinders and Bass—Adventures in a Small Boat—Discoveries—Disappearance of Bass—Death of Flinders—Eyre's Journey—Ludwig Leichhardt—Disappearance of his Party—Theory of his Fate—The Kennedy Catastrophe—The Burke and Wills Expedition—Across the Continent—The Deserted Depôt—Slow Death by Starvation—Later Expeditions.
Native Encampment. | A New Clearing. |
The story of Australian exploration is for the most part of a tragic character. Great geographical results have been achieved, but the price has been paid in great sacrifices. The records of success are saddened by many episodes of disaster and of death.
The tale of heroism and suffering begins with Bass and Flinders, two young men who have left their names writ large upon the map for ever. They went out in 1795 with the second Governor of New South Wales, Bass as surgeon of the ship Reliance, and Flinders as midshipman. The two were soon friends; they had an equal love of adventure, and the new circumstances in which they were placed fired their ardent imagination with the hope of discoveries that should benefit mankind, if not bring reputation to themselves. Never did enthusiasts set to work with more scanty material. With a little boat eight feet long, and a boy to help, they cleared Sydney Heads, and faced the unknown Southern Ocean, and mapped out a section of the Australian coast. They used to row or sail as far as they could in the day, and at night throw out a stone, which served them as an anchor, and lie at these primitive moorings till daylight. Many were their narrow escapes by sea and shore.
Once they were upset near the shore; their powder was wet, and they lost their supply of fresh water. On reaching land and righting the boat, a body of natives came down upon them, and, as the savages were well armed and were hostile in their demeanour, it looked as if the defenceless party would be sacrificed. But after a hurried consultation Bass spread the powder out on the rocks to dry, and went off to a creek to fill the keg with fresh water, while Flinders, trading on the personal vanity of the blacks, and their love for hair-dressing, trimmed the beards of the chiefs with a pair of pocket-scissors. He had no lack of candidates. Long before he had finished his task, Bass had repacked the dry powder, had loaded the muskets, and the two friends with a rush regained their boat, leaving many would-be customers lamenting, and disappointing probably some would-be slayers. A few weeks afterwards a vessel called the Sydney Cove was wrecked in the unsurveyed Tasman seas, the escaping boats were thrown ashore in a storm near Cape Howe, and this very tribe massacred most of the crew.
Ingenuity and boldness rescued the adventurers from one peril after another. As their exploits attracted attention, their friend Governor Hunter helped the discoverers to some small extent. Flinders had to sail with his vessel to Norfolk Island, but Bass obtained a whaleboat and a crew of six men, and with this aid he pushed boldly along the coast of what is now the colony of Victoria, discovered Corner Inlet and Western Port, and proved that Tasmania was an island, and not, as was then supposed, a part of the mainland. The separating strait rightly bears his name to this day.