rovidence_ to Tahiti, and thence to the West Indies (this
was Bligh's successful bread-fruit voyage); then he was in the
_Bellerophon_, and was present at Lord Howe's victory, "the glorious 1st
of June." Two months later he left in the _Reliance_ for Sydney.

The surgeon of the _Reliance_ was George Bass. From his boyhood Bass
wanted to be a sailor, but was apprenticed, sorely against his will, to a
Boston apothecary. His father was a farmer at Sleaford, in Lincolnshire;
but his mother was early left a widow. The lad served his apprenticeship,
duly walked the hospitals, and his mother spent most of her small
substance in starting him in business as a village apothecary in his
native county. Then, like so many before and since his time, unable to
overcome his first infatuation, he threw all his shore affairs to the wind
and obtained an appointment to the _Reliance_.

Governor Hunter, it will be remembered, took a keen interest in the
exploration of Australia, and he had for some time suspected the
existence of a strait between Van Diemen's Land and the main continent.
Full of desire for adventure and tired of the routine life of a penal
settlement, Flinders and Bass, soon after they landed in the colony, found
a new occupation in the pursuit of fresh discoveries, and Hunter willingly
lent them such poor equipment as the limited resources of the colony
afforded.

A month after the arrival of the _Reliance_ at Sydney the two friends set
to work, and in an eight-foot boat, which they appropriately named the
_Tom Thumb_, went poking in and out along the coast-line, making
discoveries of the greatest local value. Then began work destined to be of
world-wide importance.

Take the map of Tasmania and look at a group of islands at its north-east
corner; they are in what was later on to be called Bass' Straits. Among
them are two named Preservation and Clarke Islands; these and Armstrong
Channel commemorate the wreck of the _Sydney Cove_, which occurred on
February 9th, 1797. The _Sydney Cove_ was an East Indiaman bound from
Bengal to Sydney; she sprang a leak, was with difficulty navigated to the
spot named Preservation Island, and there beached.

[Illustration: CAPTAIN MATTHEW FLINDERS, R.N. From the "Naval Chronicle"
for 1814.] [Sidenote: _To face p_. 170.]

The crew, many of whom were Lascars, were saved, with a few stores. Then
the long-boat, with the mate, supercargo, three European seamen, and a
dozen Lascars, was de