was to bale out the water which, in spite of every care, the sea threw in upon them.
After running nearly an hour in this critical manner, some high breakers were distinguished ahead, and behind them there appeared a range of cliffs. It was necessary to determine, on the instant, what was to be done, for their barque could not live ten minutes longer. On coming to what appeared to be the extremity of the breakers, the boat's head was brought to the wind in a favourable moment, the mast and sail taken down, and the oars got out. Pulling them towards the reef during the intervals of the heaviest seas, they found it to terminate in a point, and in three minutes they were in smooth water under its lee. A white appearance, further back, kept them a short time in suspense; but a nearer approach showed it to be the beach of a well-sheltered cove, in which they anchored for the rest of the night. "So sudden a change," says Flinders, "from extreme danger to comparatively perfect safety, excited reflections which kept us some time awake. We thought 'Providential Cove' a well-adapted name for this place; but by the natives, as we afterwards learned, it is called Watta-Mowlee."
In the course of this little expedition, they had no other means of ascertaining the situation of places than by pocket-compass bearings and computed distances; but, notwithstanding this, they brought back very careful accounts both of the latitude and longitude of the spots examined.
In December of the following year, Bass was so fortunate as to obtain leave to make an expedition to the southward, and for this purpose he was furnished with
