CHAPTER III. THE DISCOVERIES OF BASS AND FLINDERS. #1.# No community has ever been more completely isolated than the first inhabitants of Sydney. They were three thousand miles away from the nearest white men; before them lay a great ocean, visited only at rare intervals, and, for the greater part, unexplored; behind them was an unknown continent, a vast, untrodden waste, in which they formed but a speck. They were almost completely shut out from intercourse with the civilised world, and few of them could have any hope of returning to their native land. This made the colony all the more suitable as a place of punishment; for people shrank with horror at the idea of being banished to what seemed like a tomb for living men and women. But, for all that, it was not desirable that Australia should remain always as unknown and unexplored as it then was; and, seven years after the first settlement was made, two men arrived who were determined not to suffer it so to remain. When Governor Hunter came in 1795, he brought with him, on board his ship the _Reliance_, a young surgeon, George Bass, and a midshipman called Matthew Flinders. They were young men of the most admirable character, modest and amiable, filled with a generous and manly affection for one another, and fired by a lofty enthusiasm which rejoiced in the wide field for discovery and fame that spread all around them. Within a month after their arrival they purchased a small boat about eight feet in length, which they christened the _Tom Thumb_. Its crew consisted of themselves and a boy to assist--truly a poor equipment with which to face a great and stormy ocean like the Pacific. They sailed out, and after tossing for some time like a toy on the huge waves, they succeeded in entering Botany Bay, which they thoroughly explored, making a chart of its shores and rivers. On their return, Governor Hunter was so highly pleased with their work, that, shortly after, he gave them a holiday, which they spent in making a longer expedition to the south. It was said that a very large river fell into the sea south of Botany Bay, and they went out to search for its mouth.