The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 | Page 7

line being elaborately filled in with names in French,
and it is embellished with drawings of animals and men, being also
ornamented with two shields bearing the arms of France. The map is
undated, but was probably designed in the latter part of the reign of
Francis L, for his son, the Dauphin, afterwards Henry II.
It has been alleged that Captain Cook was guided by these charts to the
eastern shore of New Holland, and the similarity of some of the names
thereon, such as COSTE DES HERBAIGES, and COSTE
DANGEROUSE, to names given by him, has been pointed out. This
allegation, however, will not stand criticism. Botany Bay, for instance,
is about the last place that any one would select to bestow such a name
on as COSTE DES HERBAIGES, which name would signify a rich

and fertile spot, certainly not such a desolate place as Botany Bay was
in Captain Cook's time. Captain Tench, one of the survey party sent
there in 1789, writes in his journal:--"We were unanimously of the
opinion that had not the nautical part of Mr. Cook's description been so
accurately laid down, there would exist the utmost reason to believe
that those who have described the contiguous country had never seen it.
On the side of the harbour, a line of sea coast more than thirty miles
long, we did not find two hundred acres which could be cultivated."
Any approximation then in position between Botany Bay and the
fabulous COSTE DES HERBAIGES must be considered as accidental.
The generally received opinion of this and the other charts is, that Java
(JAVE) is fairly well laid down, and that Great Java stands for the
supposed South Land. Plausible as this theory reads, it is, however,
open to objection. If it be accepted, and the narrow strait the river
GRANDE be looked upon as that portion of the Indian Ocean dividing
Java from the north-west coast of Australia, any resemblance to the
present known shape of our continent is very hard to trace, unless after
a most distorted fashion. If, however, we make the necessary
allowances for the many errors that would creep in from one
transcription to another, and look upon JAVE and JAVE LA GRANDE
as one continent intersected by a mediterranean sea, we have a fair, if
rude, conception of the north coast of Australia. Moreover, let the
reader imagine a south coast line drawn from BAYE PERDUE on the
east to HAVRE DE SYLLA on the west, doing away with the
conjectural east and west coast continuations south of those points; the
deep inlet between JAVE and JAVE LA GRANDE standing for the
Gulf of Carpentaria, a very passable outline of the whole continent is
obtained. And it is more than probable that this view was originally
suggested by this map, and from it sprang the belief current, even to the
beginning of this century, that an open passage existed from the west
coast, either into the Gulf of Carpentaria, or to the head of Spencer's
Gulf. The other maps give no more information than this one, and the
identity of their origin is obvious. One, however, has been found in the
British Museum the features of which are different. It is a rough copy
of an old map showing the north west portion of a continent to the
south of "Java Major." It bears a legend in Portugese, of which the

following is a translation:--"Nuca Antara was discovered in the year
1601 by Manoel Godinho Eredia, by command of the Viceroy Ayres de
Soldanha." This would point to a Portugese discovery of Australia
immediately preceding the Dutch one.
In Cornelius Wytfliet's "Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum,"
Louvain, 1598, the following passage is to be found:--
"The Australis Terra is the most southern of all lands; it is separated
from New Guinea by a narrow strait; its shores are hitherto but little
known, since, after one voyage and another, that route has been
deserted, and seldom is the country visited unless when sailors are
driven there by storms. The Australis Terra begins at two or three
degrees from the equator, and is maintained by some to be of so great
an extent that if it were thoroughly explored it would be regarded as a
fifth part of the world."
The above is so vague and suppositious that it would scarcely be worth
quoting, were it not for the singular mention of the narrow strait
separating Australis Terra from New Guinea; for at this time Torres had
not sailed through the straits, nor was the fact of his having done so
known to the world until the end of the eighteenth century, when
Dalrymple discovered his report amongst the archives of Manila, and
did justice to his memory.
In 1605, Pedro Fernandez de Quiros,