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The ship reached Groote Eylandt without trouble, and the New Year was seen in at the island’s southern
reaches. Two days later, however, a crewmember died from drowning, after having successfully guided the ship
through a shoal near the island’s shore.
On Chasm Inlet, just north of Groote Eylandt, though closer to the mainland, Flinders made another discovery
of anthropological significance—several rock paintings in ochre and charcoal of kangaroos, porpoises, turtles and
human figures.
Toward the end of January 1803 Flinders’ party repelled an Aboriginal attack at Blue Mud Bay, on the coast
of Arnhem Land. During the attack a marine died (of sunstroke) and another was speared; although he lived,
the Aborigine who speared him did not. Morgan’s Isle is so named in memory of the marine; the Aborigine was
not commemorated.
By February 1803 Investigator had survived the first three months of its six months’ life expectancy, had left
the Gulf, and was at the northeastern tip of Arnhem Land. Here Flinders had his first encounter with Macassan
praus, trepanging off the northern coast. Flinders was very wary of the Macassans—they numbered three times his
crew—but the praus and Investigator parted on good terms. Flinders named the meeting place Malay Road, and
gave the name of the captain with whom he conferred to a nearby island, Pobassoo.
After charting and naming, among others, the English Company’s Islands, Arnhem Bay, Cape Wilberforce
and Melville Bay, Flinders took his exhausted crew, by now suffering the effects of scurvy, and his rotting ship to
Timor. He arrived there on the last day of March and left again within days, anxious to reach Port Jackson with his
ship intact. Investigator limped down the Western Australian coast and continued across the Great Australian Bight
to Kangaroo Island. Flinders remained there for a short time, hoping to chart the island. However several of the
crew had died from dysentery and the need to reach Port Jackson quickly was even greater. In June 1803 Flinders
sailed into Sydney, completing his circumnavigation of Terra Australis.
On his return voyage to England, the French imprisoned Flinders when he stopped at Mauritius; the French,
unbeknown to Flinders, were in the midst of a war with England. After six years, Flinders was allowed to return to
England, where he was reunited with his wife. His publication A Voyage to Terra Australis details his explorations
in Australian waters, and it is in this book he recommended the name ‘Australia’ for the ‘Great South Land’.
Flinders died on 19 July 1814 at his home in London, as the first copies of A Voyage to Terra Australis were being
delivered. He left behind a wife and daughter, as well as a vastly increased knowledge of Australian waters, and
the Australian coastline.
Flinders’ seamanship and navigation skills enabled him to survey the coastline with far more detail than those
before him and so, in more ways than one, Matthew Flinders helped to shape the continent he preferred to call
Australia.
J Barker, My Own Destroyer—A Biography of Matthew Flinders, 1962; M Colwell, The Voyages of Matthew Flinders, 1970; D Mack, Matthew
Flinders, 1966.
DUNCAN McCONNEL, Vol 1.FLINT, ERNEST EBENEZER SAMUEL (1854–1887), Overland Telegraph Line employee, was born in 1854.
Nothing is known about his background—his parents, other relatives, where he lived, his education. However,
some things can be inferred on the basis of his later experiences. He was probably a South Australian and there is
little doubt that he received a sound education. It is also probable that he had some association, through his family
or family friends; with pastoral interests and that he was a competent horseman. It is further likely that in the late
1860s he joined the post office staff in Adelaide or another major centre.
Nothing is known of his appearance, and yet this ‘man of mystery’ is representative of many ‘white’ people
who lived in Central Australia in the earliest years of European settlement.
In August–September 1871 Ebenezer Flint, as he was generally known, travelled from Adelaide to Port Augusta,
probably on horseback. He was one of a small party of men led by Ray Boucaut, who were joined by yet others at Port
Augusta. They were the ‘operators who would take charge of the telegraph stations [of the Overland Telegraph Line]
as they were built and who would remain as stationmasters after the construction parties withdrew’. At 17 years of
age Flint was almost certainly the youngest of a young band of men; they left Port Augusta on 26 September 1871.
The initial travel, on horseback, taking turns assisting with the driving of wagonloads of equipment and stores, and
on foot was a great adventure for them. They enjoyed meeting the characters of the ‘back country’—the pastoral
people, the bush workers and the publicans and the young women of the more ‘settled’ districts. The further north
they travelled, though, the fewer became the white women—there were none for at least half of their journey—and
the greater the difficulties of travel. They arrived at the Peake, then the major telegraph station depot in the far
north of South Australia, on 13 November. Here they found that promised rifles and revolvers were not available
and the majority of the men refused to travel further. Boucaut, a good leader, prevailed on the officer-in-charge
to let them have one carbine and one revolver and, although this was not really adequate, all of the men agreed to
continue the journey.
Upon arrival at Charlotte Waters, virtually at the Northern Territory/South Australia border and in the area
of lowest rainfall in Australia, the party split for a time. C W I Kraagen, together with two others, left Boucaut,
Flint and the remaining men with the teams and pushed ahead quickly for Alice Springs. However, they were unable
to find water and Kraagen, on riding ahead of his two companions in a desperate search, perished. His companions
survived and on 20 December 1871 Flint and his mates helped bury Kraagen on present-day Maryvale Station,
some 130 kilometres south of Alice Springs. No doubt it was a sobering experience for all of them, and for Flint it
was the beginning of a lesson—in the often-arid centre one must work with the country, not challenge it.