VOYAGE OF THE ROEBUCK 327 



Dampier's guess was wrong. But it seems, nevertheless, A good 

 to have been a good guess, and bears good testimony fhough 

 to Dampier's scientific seamanship. A century later wrong. 

 Flinders, summing up geographic knowledge before his 

 own voyage of 1802, and the problems which he had hoped 

 to solve in that voyage, wrote that Dampier's guess was 

 supported by " a fair induction from facts." By that 

 time Cook's voyage had proved that the supposed passage 

 could not lead into the great ocean Eastward. But it 

 was thought "possible that it might communicate with 

 the Gulf of Carpentaria, and even probable that a passage 

 existed from thence to the unknown part of the South 

 coast beyond the Isles of St. Francis and St. Peter. But 

 whether the opening were the entrance to a strait, separating 

 Terra Australis into one or more islands, or led into a 

 mediterranean sea, as some thought ; or whether it were 

 the entrance of a large river ; there was, in either case, a 

 great geographical question to be settled, relative to the 

 parts behind Rosemary Island." l Flinders' own voyages 

 proved that, if there were a passage behind Rosemary 

 Island, that passage communicated neither with the South 

 coast nor with the Gulf of Carpentaria. But the " geogra- 

 phical question relative to the parts behind Rosemary 

 Island," which Dampier had asked with so much good 

 judgment, remain unanswered till an even later date. 2 



Dampier looked for an opening, but he looked far more Roebuck 

 eagerly for some water. In Latitude 18 21', in the bay ay ' 

 now called Roebuck Bay, he went ashore with a few men, 

 armed with muskets and cutlasses, and carrying shovels 

 and pick-axes to dig wells. They dug eight or nine feet, 

 but there was no water. At last they found " a rundlet 

 of brackish water," not fit to drink, but good enough 

 to boil their oatmeal porridge, whereby they might save 

 their other water for drinking. The country was so 

 barricaded with a long, chain of sandhills that they could 

 see nothing of what was further inland What they could 

 see were " Savannahs " bearing a sort of thin coarse grass, 



1 Flinders, vol. i. p. Ixvi. 



* Cf. the voyages of King, and of Stokes. 



