weeks, he left Wreck Reef amid ringing
cheers to get help from Sydney for the eighty men left on the sandbank.

"The reader," says the hero of this adventure, "has perhaps never gone
two hundred and fifty leagues at sea in an open boat or along a strange
coast inhabited by savages; but, if he recollect the eighty officers
and men upon Wreck Reef, and how important was our arrival to their
safety and to the saving of the charts, journals, and papers of the
_Investigator's_ voyage, he may have some idea of the pleasure we felt,
particularly myself, at entering our destined port."

Half-starved, unshaven, deplorable indeed were the men when they
staggered into Sydney, and "an involuntary tear started from the eye
of friendship and compassion" when the Governor learnt how nearly
Flinders and his friends had lost their lives.

[Illustration: THE HUTS OF THE CREW OF THE _PORPOISE_ ON THE SANDBANK,
WRECK REEF. From Flinders' _Voyages_.]

A few days later Flinders left Sydney for the last time, in a little
home-built ship of twenty-nine tons, the _Cumberland_. It was the
first ship ever built in the colony, and the colonists were glad it
should be of use to the man who had done so much for their country.
With all his papers and his beloved journals, Flinders put to sea
accompanied by a ship to rescue the men left on Wreck Reef. Three months
later, owing to the leaky condition of the ship, he landed at Mauritius.
Here he was taken prisoner and all his papers and journals were seized
by the French. During his imprisonment a French_ Voyage of Discovery_
was issued, Napoleon himself paying a sum of money to hasten
publication. All the places discovered by Flinders, or "Monsieur
Flinedore" as the French called him, were called by French names.
Fortunately before reaching Mauritius, Flinders had sent duplicate
copies of his charts home, and the whole fraud was exposed. Flinders
did not reach home till 1810. A last tragedy awaited him. For he died
in 1814, on the very day that his great book, _The Voyage to Terra
Australis_, was published. Flinders was a true explorer, and as he
lay dying he cried, "I know that in future days of exploration my spirit
will rise from the dead and follow the exploring ship!"

CHAPTER LIX

STURT'S DISCOVERIES IN AUSTRALIA

Since the days of Flinders, much discovery had been done in the great
new island-continent of Australia. The Blue Mountains had been crossed,
and the river Macquarie di