Oceania & Pacific · Modernised and illustrated edition
A Voyage to Terra Australis
Modernized, illustrated English edition of A Voyage to Terra Australis by Matthew Flinders (1804-1810).
Six years a captive on Île de France, his letters unanswered and his charts confiscated.
Read more ↓- about 200 pages
- Paperback
- English
- 19th century
Countries covered: Mauritius · South Africa · St. Helena
About this book
April 1804, Port Louis. Matthew Flinders, the man who has just charted Australia, discovers his new cell: the Garden prison. His French passport changes nothing. Captain-General Decaen takes him for a spy and waits for orders from France.
The months drag on. His spyglasses are confiscated, the rooftop door where he took the evening air is nailed shut, and an article in the Moniteur accuses him. Flinders writes, pleads, refutes. His letters leave for Paris, for India, for Port Jackson, and remain unanswered.
In August 1805, on parole, he at last reaches the heights of the island. At the Refuge at Vacoas, in the home of Madame D'Arifat, he finds a family and loyal friends, such as the young merchant Pitot. He explores the lakes of Grand Bassin, the waterfalls of the Tamarin, the caves of the Saint-Pierre plains, the estate where La Pérouse once lived. But the hurricanes of 1806 devastate the plantations, his servant loses his reason, and the order of release that arrives in 1807 remains a dead letter in Decaen's hands.
Then the war draws closer. British frigates blockade the island, and Saint-Paul on Réunion falls. How much longer will a scholar's captivity weigh in the contest between two empires?
Product details
- Publisher
- Itinerarium Éditions
- Series
- Oceania & Pacific
- The author
- Matthew Flinders
- Date of the journey
- 1804-1810
- Modern edition by
- Isabelle Perol
- Language
- English
- Format
- Paperback, 6 × 9 in (15.2 × 22.9 cm)
- Pages
- about 200
The author
Matthew Flinders
Matthew Flinders was born in 1774 at Donington, in Lincolnshire, and joined the Royal Navy at fifteen, where he learned navigation under William Bligh. An officer and hydrographer, he established with George Bass that Van Diemen's Land is an island, then, commanding the Investigator, sailed around the Australian continent between 1801 and 1803. In December 1803 he put in at Île de France, where General Decaen held him prisoner until 1810. Back in London, he published A Voyage to Terra Australis in 1814 and died the day after it appeared, at the age of forty.
All books by Matthew Flinders →The journey mapped
In the Same Place, Through the Centuries
-
Charles Darwin, Voyage d'un naturaliste autour du monde (1836)
In late April 1836, the *Beagle* anchors at Port Louis, twenty-six years after Flinders's departure.
Read a free edition → -
Ida Pfeiffer, Voyage à Madagascar (1856-1858)
The Viennese traveller, who has already gone twice around the world, passes through Mauritius before reaching Madagascar in 1857.
Read a free edition → -
Nicolas Pike, Sub-Tropical Rambles in the Land of the Aphanapteryx (1867-1873)
United States consul at Port Louis from 1867 to 1873, Nicolas Pike devotes his leisure to the natural history of Mauritius and the neighbouring islands.
-
Mark Twain, Le Tour du monde (Following the Equator) (1896)
In April 1896, during the lecture tour meant to pull him out of bankruptcy, Mark Twain stops for a week in Mauritius.
The modern editor
More in this series
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