158 



THE DISCOVERY OF PORT DALRYMPLE. 



Flinders' 

 Voyage, 

 Intro., 117. 



the gale and sea increased, the water rushed in fast through 

 the boat's side, and he was obliged to go on the other 

 tack. After a time of considerable danger he once more 

 reached the Promontory, this time on the west side, and 

 proceeding along the coast, discovered and entered 

 Western Port. He was detained in the Port for a fort- 

 night by contrary gales, and as the seventh week of 

 absence from Port, Jackson had expired, want of pro- 

 visions forced him very reluctantly to turn the boat's 

 head homeward. On bis way back he examined Wil- 

 son's Promontory, and came to the conclusion from 

 various indications that there must be a strait between 

 Van Diemen's Land and the mainland. He found that 

 the flood tide swept westward past the Promontory at 

 the rate of two or three miles an hour, the ebb setting to 

 the eastward. " Whenever it shall be decided," he says 

 in his journal, " that the opening between this and Van 

 Diemen's Land is a strait, this rapidity of tide, and the 

 long south-west swell that seems to be continually rolling 

 in upon the coast to the westward, will then be accounted 

 for." Strong contrary gales delayed Bass on his home- 

 ward voyage, and it was not until after an absence of 

 12 weeks, during a great part of which he and his crew 

 had subsisted chiefly on mutton-birds, that he returned 

 to Port Jackson, and reported his discoveries to Governor 

 Hunter. 

 1 March, 1798. The Governor, in his despatch to the Duke of Port- 

 land, says that Bass "found an open ocean westward, and, 

 by the mountainous sea which rolled from that quarter, 

 and no land discoverable in that direction, we have much 

 reason to conclude that there is an open strait through, 

 between the latitude of 39° and 40° 12' 8., a circum- 

 stance which, from many observations made upon tides 

 and currents, I had long conjectured ... I pre- 

 sume it will appear that the land called Van Diemen's, 

 and generallysupposed to be the southern promontory of 

 this colony, is a group of islands separated from" its 

 southern coast by a strait, which it is probable may not 

 be of narrow limits, but may perhaps be divided" into 

 two or more channels by the islands near that on which 

 the Sydney Cove was wrecked." 



During Bass' absence in the whaleboat the Francis 

 was again sent to the wreck, and this time Flinders 

 accompanied her. The schooner went as far south as the 

 entrance of Banks' Strait, and Flinders got his first sight 

 of the north coast of Van Diemen's Land. The smoke 

 rising from the land showed that there were inhabitants 



Flinders' 

 Voyage, 

 Intro., 120. 



Ibid., 120. 



