EARLY DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA. 377 



the Pole, which from this time shall be called Australia del Espiritu 

 Santo." 



Map No. 2. — We are now on the western coast of Australia. 

 The iii'st name that occurs is Rottnest Island. This island is- 

 plainly shown on the old Lusitano-Spanish charts, but bears a 

 strange name that has led to some stranger mistakes. It is called 

 " Hame de Sille." It is a curious jumble that I have not been 

 able to decipher. 



Now, in those days navigators and geographers were con- 

 stantly in search of more or less fictitious islands, among which 

 the " Island of Men " and the " Island of Women " had been 

 sought for in vain. Could this be one of the lost islands ? The 

 old-fashioned letter / resembling an "f " made Hame de Sille look 

 like Hame de fille, and a French geographer jumped at the con- 

 clusion that the word was fille and that he had found the long-lost 

 island. He called it accordingly I. des filles — Island of Girls. 

 The Dutch translated the name on their charts, appropriating 

 other national discoveries as was their wont. They called it 

 Meisje Eylandt, but instead of the girls that they expected to 

 see the island peopled with they found it over-run with beautiful 

 creatures, it is true, but, alas, of the small wallaby kind — that 

 pretty brindled kind peculiar to the outlying islands of Western 

 Australia. It goes without saying that they did not know of the 

 term wallaby, and taking those pretty creatures for overgrown 

 rats — they described them as being as large as a cat — they called 

 the island Rat Island or Rats' Nest, and Rottnest is the Dutch 

 form thereof, preserved to this day. 



Houtman's Abrolhos — this is another Dutch puzzle. Houtman 

 was certainly a Dutchman, but the word Abrolhos is Portuguese 

 and refers to the nature of the reef. In making inquiries about 

 Houtman, I found there were two brothers of that name. At 

 an early stage of their career, long before they came out to Java 

 with the first fieeters, they were commissioned by Dutch merchants 

 to go to Portugal and make inquiries about Portuguese maps and 

 voyages to the East. It is uncertain which brother has his name 

 commemorated in connection with this reef, and as no mention of 

 either brother having ever been near them occurs in history it 

 is most likely that the name was substituted for some Portuguese 

 name that held the honour of priority. 



Pt. Cloates is a name equally puzzling. It is evidently a 

 corruption, probably of the French word Roches, which itself is 

 derived from Roccos, and may refer to the gigantic Roc described 

 by Marco Polo. It belonged at one time to a far outlying island 

 that was reported to exist off the part of the western coast of 

 Australia, where the name is now to be found. Cloates Island is 

 often mentioned in early narratives. Some sea captains sighted 

 it and gave vivid descriptions of its beauty ; whereas others sailed 

 backwards and forwards over the position that it was supposed to 

 occupy without ever setting their eyes on it. Finally Captain 



