The fact that this important work was actually done by the English navigator was in no measure due to the sagacity of the Admiralty--whose officials procrastinated in an inexplicable fashion even after the Investigator had been commissioned and equipped--but to his own promptness, competence and zeal, and the peculiar dilatoriness of his rivals.

Baudin's vessels reached Ile-de-France (Mauritius) in March, 1801, and lay there for the leisurely space of forty days.

Two-thirds of a year had elapsed before they came upon the Australian coast.

But Baudin did not even then set to work where there was discovery to be achieved.

Winter was approaching, and sailing in these southern seas would be uncomfortable in the months of storm and cold; so he dawdled up the west coast of Australia, in warm, pleasant waters, and made for Timor, where he arrived in August.