WAS AUSTRALIA KNOWN ? 85 



are to believe this very intelligent and well-informed Dutch 

 traveller, the natives of the North coast of Java did not even 

 know whether their land was an island, or was a tip of the 

 great Southern Continent (of which we shall soon hear more), 

 reaching to the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope. 



PART OF LINSCHOTEN'S CHART OF JAVA AND THE ISLANDS TO THE EASTWARD. 

 (From Linschoten's Voyages, 1623.) 



If then we were to judge solely by the writings of the 

 'ortuguese, and of those who wrote from Portuguese 

 information, it would appear certain that, excepting once 

 lore the islands to the South of Timor which Galvano says 

 rere seen by the people in the Victoria, there was no 

 mowledge of anything South of the North coast of Java. 



Nor does it seem to me that there is the least reason to 

 >e surprised by this apparent ignorance. There is nothing 



