of these young women were marriageable, and all of them were of very cheerful dispositions. In one of them it was observed that the right breast had acquired its full size, while the left was still perfectly flat. This temporary defect had no effect on the liveliness of her manner… No doubt we lost much by not understanding the language of these natives, for one of the girls said a good deal to us: she talked a long while with extraordinary volubility, though she must have perceived that we could not comprehend her meaning—no matter, she must talk. The others attempted more than once to charm us by songs, with the modulation of which I was singularly struck, from the great analogy of the tunes to those of the Arabs in Asia Minor. Several times two sang the same tune at once, but always a third above the other, forming a concord with the greatest exactness.
"Soon after we arrived at the entrance of Port D'Entrecasteaux. Two of the young girls followed the different windings of the shore, without mistrust, at a distance from the other Natives, with three of our sailors, when these took the opportunity to treat them with a degree of freedom which was received in a very different manner from what they had hoped. The young women immediately fled to the rocks most advanced into the sea, and appeared ready to leap into it, and swim away, if our men had followed them. They presently repaired to the place where we were assembled with the other savages; but it seems they did not disclose this adventure, for the most perfect harmony continued to prevail between us."
It is a singular circumstance, illustrative of the paradoxes of human nature, that at the moment while these Frenchmen were fraternizing so affectionately with barbarians at the Antipodes, their countrymen at home were revelling in the blood of their fellow-citizens—as the Reign of Terror then prevailed.
Mr. Flinders, accompanied by his friend Mr. Surgeon Bass, followed the Frenchmen in making Tasmanian acquaintances. These two young men, after the discovery of Western Port in an adventurous voyage in a little open boat, obtained the use of the colonial schooner Norfolk, sailed from Sydney in 1798, passed through Bass's Strait, and proved Van Diemen's Land to be an island.
Mr. Flinders' account did not appear for several years, as he
