THE SUCCESSORS OF COOK 499 



Van Diemen's Land, and it determined the sites of its two 

 chief cities. But its great distinction was the definite proof 

 of the existence of a Strait between New South Wales and 

 Van Diemen's Land. This was a discovery, Flinders 

 claimed, which shortened the passage from the Cape 

 to Port Jackson by at least a week ; and it also made 

 easier the passage from the South Cape of Van Diemen's 

 Land to the Cape of Good Hope or to India by removing 

 " the fear of the great unknown bight between the South 

 Cape and the South-West Cape of Leeuwen's Land." 

 Ships sailing from South Cape could now safely make a 

 West-North- West course, or call at King George the 

 Third's Sound, that had been discovered by Vancouver ; 

 and " it is to be hoped," concluded Flinders, already 

 thinking of the future rather than of the past, " that 

 a few years will disclose to us many others (i.e. other 

 Sounds) on the coast, as well as the verification or futility 

 of the conjecture that a still larger than Bass's Strait 

 dismembers New Holland." All these good things followed 

 from the discovery of Bass's Strait, and " Bass's Strait," "Bass's 

 Flinders told Governor Hunter, the name must be. "This," 

 he wrote at a later date, "was no more than a just tribute 

 to my worthy friend and companion, for the extreme 

 dangers and fatigues he had undergone in first entering 

 it in the whale-boat, and to the correct judgment he had 

 formed." 



And this is our reverent and affectionate farewell to 

 George Bass, that clear, bright, brave and loving spirit. 

 His day of knightly venture was done, and the end no 

 man knows. We follow the story of the equal friend, 

 still determined to carry the common scheme to completion. 



For to Flinders it still seemed morning. The rich Flinders' 

 gleanings of Cook's harvest remained on the field, and he ambltlon - 

 was so to gather them that no straw would remain for 

 his successors. "My greatest ambition," he wrote, "is 

 to make such a minute investigation that no person 

 shall have occasion to come after me to make further 

 discoveries." All the problems of the Australian map 

 crowded his mind, and, dominant among them, the problem 



