There is nothing incredible in Peron's narrative of the sufferings of himself and his companions on this excursion. It is not surprising to one with a knowledge of the local conditions. The exertions they had made should have earned them commendation, or at least compassion, from the commandant. But Baudin's view was censorious. Three times during the evening a gun had been fired from the ship as a signal to the boat to return. The officer in charge of the shore party considered that it would be unjustifiable to leave until the three travellers returned, and trusted that this explanation would be accepted as excusing the delay. A sea fog now prevented the boat from returning forthwith; but the sailors had neither food nor water to give to the parched and famished unfortunates. When at last they did reach the ship, they had been for forty hours without sup or sip; they were prostrate from sheer weakness; and Peron himself was reduced to the extremity that his leathern tongue refused to articulate. The commandant was the only man aboard who had no pity to spare for their misery. Baudin actually fined the officer in charge of the boat ten francs for every gun fired, because he had not obeyed the return signal, and for not "abandoning all three." "Those were the very words of our chief," wrote Peron; "and yet I had, to save his life at Timor, given to his physician part of the small stock of excellent quinine that I had brought for my own use." This heartless conduct, taken in conjunction with Baudin's abandonment of Boullanger on the Tasmanian coast, and his strange behaviour to the Casuarina after the exploration of the gulfs, leaves one in no doubt as to his singular deficiency in the qualities essential to the commander of an expedition of discovery. It was his invariable practice, we also read, to provision boats engaged on any special service for the bare time that he meant them to be absent; so many ounces of food and so many pints of water per man per day, and no more, leaving no margin for accidents, allowing of no excuse for unavoidable delay. A sensible person would not provide for a picnic on such principles.