122 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



la Grande. Perhaps Marco Polo's " Java Major " \va.s 

 something like this. And perhaps the " extensive and 

 rich province that forms part of the mainland-" is really 

 continuous with Java Major, and may connect it with 

 " the Austral Land not yet wholly discovered." Anyway, 

 as no one knows anything whatever about this land, it 

 will offer a fine opportunity to the geographic artist with 

 imagination and artistic skill. And, seeing that it is a 

 country that largely owes its existence on the map to 

 Marco Polo, decorations should mainly be chosen from 

 that traveller's famous book, though hints may wisely 

 be taken also from more recent travel stories. 



No doubt an explanation of this sort is a guess, and a 

 guess that may easily be entirely wrong. But, on the whole, 

 I am so impressed by the difficulty of explaining these maps 

 as the product of voyages of discovery, and the easiness 

 of explaining them as the product of the imagination 

 working on scientific theories and Marco Polo narratives, 

 that nothing would induce me to accept Jave la Grande 

 as the equivalent of Australia save resemblances in detail 

 of a very undeniable nature. 



Now the resemblances that have been pointed out do 

 not seem to me to be very convincing. 1 



(i) The outline of the North coast of Jave la Grande 

 is exceedingly wwlike the outline of the North coast of 

 Australia. What does " Sumbava " stand for in terms 

 of Australian geography ? Mr. Major apparently thinks 

 that the Portuguese confused it with Arnhem's land, 

 and that the Eastern coast of Sumbava therefore is the 

 Western coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria. But, in that 

 case, where is Cape York Peninsula ? Mr. Major suggests 

 that Cape York Peninsula may have been " altogether 

 unvisited and ignored." That is to say, Portuguese 

 seamen knew the Western and Southern coasts of the 

 Gulf and they also knew the coast of Queensland South 

 of Halifax Bay ; but they had no knowledge of the coast 

 between these separate discoveries, which the map-maker 



1 Compare outline of Rotz's map with outline of map of Australia. 

 See p. 123. 



