s, with the Dutchman Pieter Nuyts, in
the early part of the seventeenth century, and the Frenchman St. Alouarn,
who anchored near the Leeuwin in 1772, were the only Europeans known to
have been upon any part of these southern coasts before the advent of
Flinders; and the extent of the voyage of Nuyts is by no means clear.

Flinders, as we have seen, laid it down as a guiding principle that he
would make so complete a survey of the shores visited by him as to leave
little for anybody to do after him. He therefore commenced his work
immediately he touched land, constructing his own charts as the ship
slowly traversed the curves of the coast. The result was that many
corrections and additions to the charts of Vancouver and Dentrecasteaux
were made before the entirely new discoveries were commenced. In
announcing this fact, Flinders, always generous in his references to good
work done by his predecessors, warmly praised the charts prepared by
Beautemps-Beaupre, "geographical engineer" of the Recherche. "Perhaps no
chart of a coast so little known as this is, will bear a comparison with
its original better than this of M. Beaupre," he said. His own charts
were of course fuller and more precise, but he made no claim to
superiority on this account, modestly observing that he would have been
open to reproach if, after following the coast with an outline of M.
Beaupre's chart before him, he had not effected improvements where
circumstances did not permit so close an examination to be made in 1792.

Several inland excursions were made, and some of the King George's Sound
aboriginals were encountered. Flinders noted down some of their words,
and pointed out the difference from words for the same objects used by
Port Jackson and Van Diemen's Land natives. An exception to this rule was
the word used for calling to a distance--cau-wah! (come here). This is
certainly very like the Port Jackson cow-ee, whence comes the one
aboriginal word of universal employment in Australia to-day, the coo-ee
of the townsman and the bushman alike, a call entered in the vocabulary
collected by Hunter as early as 1790.

The method of research adopted by Flinders was similar to that employed
on the Norfolk voyage. The ship was kept all day as close inshore as
possible, so that water breaking on the shore was visible from the deck,
and no river or opening could escape notice. When this could not be done,
because the coast retreated far back, or was dange