WAS AUSTRALIA KNOWN ? 83 



Mexico, explored long stretches of the Northern coast of 

 New Guinea, and came away with exceedingly bad im- 

 pression of the looks and the morality of the inhabitants. 

 But neither in Portuguese nor in Spanish writing is there 

 one word (so far as I know) to suggest knowledge of any- 

 thing South of the North coasts of the island chain from 

 Java to Timor ; no word save the passage in Galvano telling 

 of "certain islands under the Tropic of Capricorn " to which, 

 he says, the Victoria came a hundred leagues beyond Timor. 



And, while there is no word in our chronicles, save these, and confess 

 to suggest knowledge of Australia, there are a good many e^rvthing > 

 words that suggest ignorance.. Barros, a Portuguese south of 

 chronicler who wrote about the middle of the sixteenth ^ ava- 

 century, tells that the natives of Java say that on the South 

 of Java is an undiscovered sea ; and they think that who- Barros. 

 ever proceeds beyond the straits between Java and Bali 

 will be hurried away by strong currents, so as never to be 

 able to return ; and for this reason they never attempt to 

 navigate it ; l a statement that reminds one at once of Friar 

 Odoric's story of " the sea called Mare Mortuum which 

 runneth continually southward, into which whosoever 

 falleth is never seen afterwards " ; and also of an inscription 

 of Fra Mauro to the -effect that " ships sailing towards the 

 South which allow themselves to approach the Dim Islands 

 will be carried by the currents into the darkness, and once 

 entered into those regions, through the density of the air 

 or of the tenacious waters they must perish." 2 Readers 

 of Wallace's account of the Malay Archipelago will find that 

 these stories contains certain amount of truth. So violent 

 and so uncertain, he writes, are the currents that flow 

 through the straits of Lombok, that " vessels preparing to 

 anchor in the bay are sometimes suddenly swept away into 



1 Quoted by Major, p. Iv. 



2 Yule's Cathay, vol. ii. p. 160. Cf. Themara, 1556: "Thirty 

 Leagues from Java the Less is Gatigara, nineteen degrees the other 

 side of the Equinoctial land towards the South. Of the lands beyond 

 this point nothing is known, for navigation has not been extended 

 further, and it is impossible to proceed by land on account of the 

 numerous lakes and lofty mountains in these parts. It is even said 

 that there is the seat of Paradise." Quoted by Major (p. Ixv) as 

 representing the best Spanish opinion at the time, 



