2 2 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



territory which he discovered and named "Austrialia del Espiritu Santo" was not the con- 

 tinent of his dreams. But his expedition led the way in which the navigators of the 

 future were to follow, and the subsequent discoveries of De Bougainville, of Cook and others 

 were but the fulfillment of the great scheme which he first definitely elaborated. His 

 expedition was no mere blundering cruise of irresponsible adventure, but a voyage as 

 expressly undertaken for a distinct object as that of the discoverer of America. The 

 I~>n\'flicn had indeed touched at Australian soil, and so by the hap-hazard of an accident 

 arrived at the reality that De Ouiros was never to know that he had missed. But such 

 a circumstance cannot detract from the merit of the work of a whole life-time, or deprive 

 the old Portuguese pilot of the honour he so gallantly earned. Subsequent expeditions 

 of the Dutch gave them a right to the possession of the -Continent they named New 

 Holland, and in neglecting it they merely followed the example of the Spanish Court 

 which so long turned a deaf ear to the remonstrances of De Quiros. The Continent 

 thus remained open for exploitation for rather more than a century and a half after this 

 period, and so far as any immediate result of the discovery of De Ouiros was concerned, 

 his enterprise was but thrown away on the master he served. 



It is, however, to the mariners of Holland and to William Dampier that Europe 

 owes her first authentic knowledge of the Great South Land ; but it is to the labours 

 of James Cook that we are indebted for its actual settlement, for he only, amongst all 

 who had touched at its shores, brought back any report which was not either alarming 

 or discouraging of savage natives or of sterile coasts. 



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