His dream of sailing up a deep estuary--some great water way--leading to more fertile lands than those of the coast inhabited by a superior race of natives, had vanished. As the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria rounded his course from south to west, and from west to north, so the picture his fancy had painted faded; and he found himself compelled to fall back upon the conception of a mode of transit patriarchal in its simplicity. He writes:-- "With five or six asses to carry provisions (and they can be obtained here), expeditions might be made into the interior of Australia from the head of the Gulph of Carpentaria in 18 deg., and from the head of the great gulph on the south coast in 32 deg., until the courses should nearly meet, five hundred miles each way would most probably be sufficient, since the country does not appear to be mountainous: a view of my general chart will exemplify this. In case of being again sent to Australia, I should much wish that this was a part of my instructions." [Note: Referring to Flinders' scheme for exploring Australia, it may be amusing to the reader to contrast it with one projected some years later by M. Malte Brun. In his case, the amount of material the eminent geographer considered necessary for the expedition is as excessive as that of Captain Flinders' was simple. His method for exploring the continent is this: "In order to determine these questions" (namely the different theories propounded as to the nature of the interior) "it has been proposed to send an expedition to penetrate the country from Spencer's Gulf. For such an expedition, men of science and courage ought to be selected. They ought to be provided with all sorts of implements and stores, and with different animals, from the powers and instincts of which they may derive assistance. They should have oxen from Buenos Ayres, or from the English settlements, mules from Senegal, and dromedaries from Africa or Arabia. The oxen would traverse the woods and the thickets; the mules would walk securely among rugged rocks and hilly countries; the dromedaries would cross the sandy deserts. Thus the expedition would be prepared for any kind of territory that the interior might present. Dogs also should be taken to raise game, and to discover springs of water; and it has even been proposed to take pigs, for the sake of finding out esculent roots in the soil. When no kangaroos and game are to be found the party would subsist on the flesh of their own flocks. They should be provided with a balloon for spying at a distance any serious obstacle to their progress in particular directions, and for extending the range of observations which the eye would take of such level lands as are too wide to allow any heights beyond them to come within the compass of their view. The journey might be allowed a year or eighteen months, which would be only at the rate of four or five miles per day. . . . The author of the present work" ("Universal Geography")