CHAPTER II 



AUSTRALIA DISTINCT FROM NEW GUINEA. MAGELHAEN, 

 QUIROS AND TORRES 



SIXTEENTH- AND SEVENTEENTH- CENTURY IDEAS OF THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. WAS 

 NEW GUINEA PART OF IT ? SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE KNOWLEDGE. THE 

 DAUPHIN CHART. DUTCH IDEAS. BULL OF POPE ALEXANDER VI. THE SPANISH 

 MAIN. ENGLAND AND HOLLAND IN THE FIELD. MAGELHAEN'S VOYAGE TO THE 

 PHILIPPINES. His DEATH. DID HIS OFFICERS TOUCH AUSTRALIA ? QUIROS 

 DISCOVERS SANTA CRUZ AND TRIES TO ESTABLISH A COLONY. WYTFLIET'S BELIEF 

 THAT NEW GUINEA WAS DISTINCT FROM THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. SPANISH 

 KNOWLEDGE OF THE STRAIT. QUIROS' NEW EXPEDITION. FLAGSHIP AND 

 CONSORTS SEPARATE AT ESPIRITU SANTO (NEW HEBRIDES). QUIROS TAKES THAT 

 ISLAND TO BE PART OF THE SOUTH LAND. TORRES DISPROVES THIS. LAYING-OUT 

 THE NEW JERUSALEM. TORRES' REPORT DISCOVERED IN 1762. QUIROS' REPORT 

 DISCOVERED IN 1876. TORRES* VOYAGE. STRIKES THE SOUTH SlDE OF NfiW 

 GUINEA. CLEARS TORRES STRAIT, PROBABLY BY THE BLIGH CHANNEL, ABOUT 

 24TH SEPTEMBER, 1606. DOES NOT CLAIM THE STRAIT AS HIS OWN DISCOVERY 



AND PROBABLY MADE FOR IT ON INFORMATION ALREADY IN HIS POSSESSION. REACHES 



THE MOLUCCAS ABOUT 28TH NOVEMBER, 1606. SUCCESSFULLY CONDUCTS LITTLE 

 WAR AT TERN ATE. REACHES THE PHILIPPINES ABOUT I2TH MAY, 1607. 



AMASS of vague and fragmentary evidence points to the 

 conclusion that by the middle of the sixteenth century 

 Spanish and Portuguese navigators had become aware 

 that New Guinea was separated by a strait from a 

 continent lying to the south. The knowledge was, however, 

 jealously guarded. A significant passage occurs in an English 

 edition, published in Louvain in 1597, of CORNELIS WYTFLIET'S 

 Descriptionis Ptolemicte Augmentum (1597) : 



" 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." 1 



The inference, as pointed out by Collingridge, is inevitable 

 that Wytfliet referred to sources of information other than Dutch. 



Collingridge adduces * reasonable support for his contention 

 that the western coast of Australia had been " charted " (although 

 the word " sketched " might be more appropriate) by the Portu- 



1 Collingridge, Discovery of Australia, p. 219. 



2 British Association for the Advancement of Science : Sydney meeting, 1914. 

 See also his work, The Discovery of Australia, Sydney, 1895, p. 172, where the " Dauphin 

 Chart," dated 1530-1536, is reproduced. 



6 



