They Staggered On, And At Last All Three Fell
Fainting In Sight Of Their Companions, Who Hurried Forward To Relieve
Them.
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.
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