inished. But when their chins were
held up a second time, their fear of the instrument--the wild stare of
their eyes--and the smile which they forced, formed a compound upon the
rough savage countenance, not unworthy the pencil of a Hogarth. I was
almost tempted to try what effect a little snip would produce; but our
situation was too critical to admit of such experiments.

Everything being prepared for a retreat, the natives became vociferous
for the boat to go up to the lagoon; and it was not without stratagem
that we succeeded in getting down to the entrance of the stream, where
the depth of water placed us out of their reach.

In 1798 Mr. Bass sailed (in a whaleboat) with only six weeks'
provisions; but with the assistance of occasional supplies of petrels,
fish, seal's flesh, and a few geese and black swans, and by abstinence
he had been enabled to prolong his voyage beyond _eleven_ weeks. His
ardour and perseverance were crowned, in despite of the foul winds which
so much opposed him, with a degree of success not to have been
anticipated from such feeble means. In three hundred miles of coast from
Fort Jackson to the Ram Head he added a number of particulars which had
escaped Captain Cook; and will always escape any navigator in a first
discovery, unless he have the time and means of joining a close
examination by boats, to what may be seen from the ship.

Our previous knowledge of the coast scarcely extended beyond the Ram
Head; and there began the harvest in which Mr. Bass was ambitious to
place the first reaping-hook. The new coast was traced three hundred
miles; and instead of trending southwards to join itself to Van Diemen's
Land, as Captain Furneaux had supposed, he found it, beyond a certain
point, to take a direction nearly opposite, and to assume the appearance
of being exposed to the buffetings of an open sea. Mr. Bass, himself,
entertained no doubt of the existence of a wide strait, separating Van
Diemen's Land from New South Wales; and he yielded with the greatest
reluctance to the necessity of returning, before it was so fully
ascertained as to admit of no doubt in the minds of others. But he had
the satisfaction of placing at the end of his new coast, an extensive
and useful harbour, surrounded with a country superior to any other
known in the southern parts of New South Wales.

A voyage expressly undertaken for discovery in an open boat, and in
which six hundred miles of coast, mostly in a boist