6 .AUSTRAL AS/ A ILLUSTRATED. 



question still remains, it is enough to mention that Major, in ,8 5 ft considered it highly 

 probable that the Portuguese discovered the country between 1511 and 1529, and almo: 

 certain that thev discovered it before .542; but having found a matfemonde m the 

 British Museum, two years afterwards, he came to the conclusion that the country was 

 positively discovered bv the Portuguese in l6oi-the Dutch being thus summarily dis- 

 possessed of an honour they had enjoyed for more than two centuries. Further 

 researches enabled the lucky discoverer of the map to satisfy himself that it was 'an 

 abominable imposture/ and. the laurel crown was thereupon handed back to the Dutch. 

 Unfortunately, however, the detection of the imposture escaped the notice of many who 

 had read the account of the map among them being the author of a valuable work 

 on the 'History of Australian Exploration.' in whose pages it appears as unquestioned 

 evidence of a ' Portuguese discovery of Australia immediately preceding the Dutch one.' 

 However interesting the point of priority may be, it is a matter of little importance 

 compared with a reasonably accurate knowledge of the whole subject for which we 

 must wait until it is treated, like any other branch of inquiry, according to the critical 

 methods of the present day." 



It is supposed that the survivors of the ill-fated expedition commanded by Fernando 

 de Magelhaens, caught a glimpse of the' western coast during their storm-tossed wander- 

 ings, but this is merely a matter of conjecture, founded, in all likelihood, upon the 

 existence of an undated track chart drafted by the old Portuguese mariner who. in 

 1520, sailed through the straits which bear his name into the South Seas, where, in the 

 following year, he lost his life in a tight with the natives of the Philippine Islands. 



Amongst other evidences of a discovery of Australia before the close of the 

 sixteenth century, .besides those adduced by R. H. Major in his "Introduction" to 

 "Early Voyages to Terra Australis" it is stated in Dalrymple's "Voyages and Dis- 

 coveries in the South Pacific Ocean" that Juan Fernandez whose name is associated 

 with the most popular of marine romances was the finder of the Southern Land, and 

 in an edition of Ortelius, bearing the date of 1587, a map is given showing New Guinea 

 as an island separated by a strait from Terra Attstralis, and containing the words, 

 "I fane continental! Australctn nonnulli Magcllanicain rcgionoii. ab cjus inrcntorc nunciipant! 

 Various editions of Mercator of about the same date give indications similar to those 

 on the map of Ortelius. "In the map to illustrate the voyages of Drake and Cavendish 

 (temp. O. Elizabeth), New Guinea is an island, while Terra Attstralis, which is separated 

 from it, has an outline remarkably similar to that of the Gulf of Carpentaria." 



Certain it is that as early as 1598 a distinct account of Australia, probably the 

 earliest in existence, was printed at Louvain in the " Descriptions Ptolcmaicee Augincn- 

 lni " of Cornelius Wytrliet, from which we quote the following : " The Australis Terra 

 is the most southern of all lands, and 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 Aiislralis Terra begins at one or two degrees from the 

 equator and is ascertained 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." Seventy years 

 later Sir William Temple, English Ambassador to the Court of Holland, informed his 



