The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765

ng from 1595-1644, see also my L

for India in 1595, was exclusively based on what their countryman JAN HUYGEN VAN LINSCHOTEN, had told them i

, the Terra Incognita, whose fantastically shaped coast-line was reported to extend south of America, Africa and Asia, in fact to the southward of the whole then known world. This South-land was a mysterious region, no doubt, but this did not prevent its coast-lines from being stud

South-land discovered by them in 1616, is

ag

m Terra Australis. The question naturally suggests itself, whether this chart [**] will justify the assumption that the existence of Torres Strait was known to WIJTFLIET. I, for one, would not venture to infer as much, seeing that in other respects this chart so closely reproduces the vague conjectures touching a supposed Southland found on other charts of the period, that WIJTFLIET'S open passage

Documents, with ch

covery, p. 219, has a

Life of Tasman, p

induced them to try to increase and strengthen their information concerning the regions of the East. What sort of country after all was this much-discussed New-Guinea, they began to ask. As early as 1602 information was sought from the natives of adjacent

II of the

? The journal of the Duifken's voyage has not come down to us, so that we are fain to infer its results from other data, and fortunately such data are not wanting. An English ship's captain was staying at Bantam when the Duifken put to sea, and was still there when the first reports of her

go far to remove COLLINGRIDGE'S doubt (Discovery p. 245) as to

s an open strait, or did he take them to be a bay only? My answer is, that most probably he was content to leave this point altogether undecided; seeing that Carstensz. and his men in 1623 thought to find an "open passage" on the strength of information given by a chart with which they had been furnished. [

to various parts of this coast, see my Life of

pp. 47,

ge

of the existence or non-existence of an open passage between New Guinea and the land afterwards visited by him, is also proved by the circumstance that even after his time the east-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria was also called N

cht [shallow bay], where Nova-Guinea is surmised to be cut off from the rest of the Southland by a passage opening into the great South-Sea, thoug

they styled it, using an appellation characteristic of their degree of knowledge concerning it. But it was not before 1623 that another voyage was undertaken that added to t

7-8, 13 and

o. XIV (pp. 21 ff.), and espe

ht,[*] "into which they had sailed as into a trap," and the error of New Guinea and the present Australia constituting one unbroken whole, was in this way perpetuated. The line of the east-coast of th

survey and explore this shal

p. 37

ially the chart on p. 46.--Cf.

e Gulf of Carpentaria, and almost certainly also of the so-called Groote Eyland or Van der Lijns is

sman, pp. 101-102; a

ge

e east-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria was next further explored, and various new names were conferred especially on rivers on this coast, which most probably got the name of Carpentaria about this time; of the names then given a great many continue to figure in modern maps. After exploring the east-coast, Tasman turned to the south-coast of the gulf. In this latter case the results of the exploration proved to be less trustworthy afterwards. Thus Tasman mistook for a portion of the mainland

o. Much information may also be gathered from chart No. 14 of the present work, sinc

Tasman's chart of 1644 [***], or Isaac De Graaff's made about 1700 [****], which last gives a pretty satisfactory survey of the results of Tasman's voyage of 1644 so far as the Gulf of Carpentaria is concerned. Although Tasman's expedition of 1644 did not yield complete information respecting the coast-line of the Gulf, and although it is

7 on

. 6 on

o. I in the

No. 14

ir predecessors--what especially Gonzal reports on this subject, is certainly worth noting. Gonzal also first touched at the south-west coast of New Guinea, and next, again without becoming aware of the real character of Torres Strait, sailed to the east-coast of the Gulf, skirting the same up to about 13° S. Lat., after which he crossed to the west-coast. What he did there is of little inter

o. XXXVI

various parts of the coast, may be suffi

ge