BY JAMES BACKHOUSE WALKER. 



159 



on it, and as there were none on the adjoining islands, 

 Flinders was shaken in his belief in the existence of a 

 strait, for he could not understand how, unless by a con- 

 necting isthmus, men could have reached the more 

 distant Van Dieinen's Land and yet failed to have 

 attained the intervening islands, more especially as those 

 islands were so abundantly supplied with birds and 

 other food. 



When Flinders met Bass in Sydney and heard of his 

 observations at Wilson's Promontory', he declared that 

 there wanted no other proof of the existence of a strait 

 than that of sailing positively through it ; and this the 

 two friends now anxiously waited for an opportunity to 

 do. Their professional duties, however, delayed the 

 execution of the project, but six months later when the 

 Reliance returned from her voyage to Norfolk Island, 

 Flinders explained his views to Governor Hunter, and 

 the Governor gave him the Norfolk, a sloop of 25 tons, 

 with a crew of eight volunteers, to attempt the circum- 

 navigation of Van Diemen's Land. This voyage was 

 briefly mentioned in a former paper, and it is not now 

 necessary to follow it in detail, except so far as concerns 

 our immediate subject, the discovery of Port Dalrymple. 

 On the 7th October 1798, Flinders and Bass sailed in Flinders' 

 their tiny vessel on their now famous voyage. Their v °y<ige, 

 first point was Cape Barren Island, and thence they Iutro -> 138 - 

 sailed through Banks' Strait and proceeded along the 

 north coast of Tasmania. On the 3rd November, at Ibid., 152. 

 two o'clock in the afternoon, Flinders saw with great 

 interest indications oi an opening in the land, and bore 

 U P for it. The vessel advanced rapidly with the flood 

 tide, and, rounding a low head, entered a broad inlet, 

 mailing up this inlet some three miles, they passed a low 

 green island, when suddenly the sloop grounded. For- 

 tunately the ground was soft, the strong flood dragged 

 the sloop over into deep water, and drove her rapidly 

 onward till the harbour suddenly expanded into a broad 

 ar »d beautiful basin, on which swam numbers of black 

 swans, duck, and wild fowl. Its shores were broken into 

 points and projections, covered with wood and grass 

 down to the water's edge,— a strong contrast to the rocky 

 and sterile banks observed in sailing up Port Jackson. 

 a here appeared to be three arms or rivers discharging 

 themselves into this extensive basin, and, as evening was 

 coming on, the sloop was anchored near to the mouth of 

 the western arm. Flinders was greatly pleased with his 

 discovery, to which Governor Hunter gave the name of 



