The exploration of the west and north-west coasts was continued till the end of April, when Baudin decided to go once more to Timor. His intention was, after refreshing his men and taking in supplies at the Dutch settlement, to spend some time in the Gulf of Carpentaria and along the southern shores of New Guinea. On May 6, Kupang harbour was entered for the second time. There it was learnt that Flinders had called at the port in the Investigator in April, after having concluded his exploration of the northern gulf. He had been compelled to relinquish his work owing to the rotten condition of his ship's timbers, and had sailed back to Port Jackson. As he had reached the Gulf of Carpentaria by sailing up the eastern side of the continent, and returned through Torres Strait down the western coast, and through Bass Strait on the south, Flinders was the first sailor to accomplish the circumnavigation of Australia, as he had also been the first to circumnavigate Tasmania.* (* Tasman, in 1642, sailed from Batavia, in Java, thence to Mauritius, Tasmania, New Zealand, the Friendly Islands, northern New Guinea, and back to Batavia. This was a wide circumnavigation of the whole of New Holland; but he did not sight Australia, and as, of course, he did not go near Bass Strait, he did not circumnavigate the continent proper.) Le Geographe and the Casuarina remained at Kupang till June 3--twenty-eight days--enjoying the hospitality of the Dutch. Peron made several excursions for collecting purposes, and once shot an alligator nine feet long, which he skinned. He had the hide and head carried down to the port by Malays on long bamboo poles, this method of conveyance being necessitated by the superstitious refusal of the natives to touch even the skin of the dreaded beast. But the labour was to a large extent wasted, for putrefaction advanced, while the skin was in transit, to such an extent that all but the head had to be thrown into the sea.