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A L 'S TRALASIA ILL USTRA TED. 



privileged to set his foot upon the land which filled his dreams and inspired his efforts. 

 It was in the month of August, 1606, that Torres threaded his way through the 

 intricate waters that bear his name, and curiously enough in this very same year another 

 party of Europeans, approaching from the west, saw, and even landed upon, Australian 

 shores; but they also had not the least suspicion that they were looking on an unknown 

 continent. It appears from a paper discovered more than a century ago, that in 1605 a 

 party of Dutch sailors were sent out from Batavia to explore the coasts of New Guinea; 

 for while the Spaniards had been pushing to the west from America, with Lima for their 

 head-quarters, the Dutch had been steadily following their career of discovery, moving 

 eastward, as the Council of the Indies at Batavia were determined to lose no oppor- 

 tunity of securing for their newly-born republic as much of these unknown lands 

 as they could discover and appropriate. 



The little vessel the Dnyfhcn, or Dove, was therefore despatched to examine New 

 C.uinea. She sailed along the southern shore of that island till early in 1606 she reached 

 the very strait which Torres, only two or three months distant, was approaching from 

 the opposite direction. At this point her commander, whose name is unknown to history, 

 must have been deceived by bad weather, which made him fancy that the line of islets 

 so thickly studding the passage was a continuous coast. He steered steadily northward 

 till he reached Cape York Peninsula, when thinking himself still upon the shores of New 

 (itiinea, he sailed into the great opening now called the Gulf of Carpentaria. His men 

 landed near a low point of red sandy bluffs, but in the attempt to penetrate the man- 

 grove swamps that fringed the shore they were attacked by ferocious blacks and several 

 were killed. The Dutchmen do not appear to have thirsted very ardently for further 

 discoveries, for they named this ill-fated point Cape " Kccr-wccr " or "Turn-again," made 

 sail, and stood out for sea on their return voyage. Their discovery was of no value, as 

 they themselves never suspected its importance, and not until nearly two centuries had 

 elapsed did its real significance become known. 



During the next forty years the Dutch sent from Batavia a succession of small ex- 

 peditions. Besides these voyages, intended expressly for discovery, several navigators 

 wandered or were driven so far out of their course as accidentally to sight the Australian 

 Shore, and in this manner the northern and western coasts gradually became known. 



In 1616, Captain Dirk Hartog, Hertoge or Hartighs, in the ship Ecnrfraght, whilst 

 voyaging from Amsterdam to Bantam made the west coast of the Continent, landing on 

 the island which has since received his name, where he left a metal plate bearing a 

 record of the discovery. This was found about eighty years afterwards by Captain 

 \ lamingh of the (iecli'ink, who transferred the inscription to a second plate of metal and 

 added thereto an account of his own voyage. In 1801, Captain Hamelin, of the French 

 ship Naturalise, found this plate and re-erected it on a new post. 



In 1622, the Dutch ship Lccnwin, or Lioness, discovered the reef on the west coast 

 known as Houtman's Abrolhos, where seven years later Francis Pelsart was wrecked in 

 the Haiai'ia, and in the year following the Lecuwins visit the yachts Pent and Anilicm 

 were sent from Amboina to explore the coast previously discovered by the Duvfhcn. 

 Captain Jan Carstens of the Arnhnn was, with many of the crew, murdered by the New 

 Guinea blacks, but the voyage was continued and several landings effected on the shores 



