be the
extremity of the breakers, the boat's head was brought to the wind,
the mast and sail taken down, and the oars taken out. Pulling then
towards the reef during the intervals of the heaviest seas, in three
minutes we were in smooth water--a nearer approach showed us the beach
of a well-sheltered cove in which we anchored for the rest of the night.
We thought Providential Cove a well-adapted name for the place."

[Illustration: MATTHEW FLINDERS.]

Important local discoveries were made by the young explorers, and
their skill and courage earned for them a better equipment for further
exploration. A whale-boat provisioned for six weeks, and a crew of
six, were placed at the disposal of Bass in order that he might discover
whether Van Diemen's Land was joined to the mainland or whether there
was a strait between. Cook had declared that there was no strait.
Flinders now tells the story of his friend's triumphant success in
finding the straits that now bear his name. He tells how Bass found
the coast turning westward exposed to the billows of a great ocean,
of the low sandy shore, of the spacious harbour which "from its relative
position to the hitherto known parts of the coasts was called Port
Western." His provisions were now at an end and, though he was keen
to make a survey of his new discovery, he was obliged to return. This
voyage of six hundred miles in an open boat on dangerous and unknown
shores is one of the most remarkable on record. It added another three
hundred miles of known coast-line, and showed that the shores of New
Holland were divided from Van Diemen's Land. So highly did the
colonists appreciate this voyage of discovery that the whale-boat in
which Bass sailed was long preserved as a curiosity.

A small boat of twenty-five tons, provisioned for twelve weeks, was
now put at the disposal of the two friends, Flinders and Bass, to
complete the survey of Van Diemen's Land, and in October 1798 they
sailed for the south. With gales and strong winds blowing across the
channel now known as Bass Strait, they made their way along the
coast--the northern shores of Van Diemen's Land--till they found a
wide inlet. Here they found a quantity of black swans, which they ate
with joy, and also kangaroos, mussels, and oysters. This inlet they
called Port Dalrymple, after the late hydrographer to the Admiralty
in England. On 9th December, still coasting onward, they passed
Three-Hummock Island and then a whole clust