He did not even mention a pathetic, almost tragic, incident of the voyage, to which reference will presently be made.

It did not concern the actual exploratory part of his work, and so he passed it by.

The one note signifying an appreciation of the singularity of the position is conveyed in the terse words: "Sunday 31st, a.m.Daylight, got out and steered along to the southward, in anxious expectation, being now nearly come upon an hitherto unknown part of the coast." But men are emotional beings after all, and an entry for "January 1st, 1798" (really the evening of December 31), bare of the human touch as it is, brings the situation of Bass and his crew vividly before the eye of the reader.

The dramatic force of it must have been keenly realised by them.

At night there was "bright moonlight, the sky without a cloud." A new year was dawning.