as big as a man's thumb." Dampier's roaming life must have furnished him with opportunity, one would think, of knowing a hippopotamus when he saw one, but it is difficult to imagine that he judged correctly in this instance, as the hippopotamus is nowhere to be found on the scantily-watered continent of Australia. But it must not be supposed that the marine productions of Shark's Bay are confined to the hideous fish from which it takes its name, conchologists being indebted to it for very beautiful shells which are gathered on the beach.
No Frenchman came to reconnoitre West Australia until the early part of George the Third's reign, when there appeared one of great note, no less a personage than M. de Bougainville, who had rendered important assistance to the Marquis de Montcalm in defending Canada against the English, and whose intention to have supplied the garrison of Quebec with provisions, on the night that Wolfe ascended the heights of Abraham, ran within a hair's breadth of frustrating that exploit, and had nearly deprived England of one of her brightest historical pages. M. de Bougainville subsequently exchanged a soldier's life for a sailor's, and signalized himself as the first Frenchman who ever made a voyage round the world. Cape Bougainville and Cape Voltaire are two long narrow-necked promontories on either side of Admiralty Gulf in the north of West Australia—a part which at present is only resorted to by pearl-fishers.
The next visit that Western Australia received from the French was remarkable on two accounts, being due not only to one of the last acts which the unfortunate
