124 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



therefore connected by an imaginary line decorated 

 with rivers and capes and names. This theory seems 

 to me to be incredible. If one large part of the coast- 

 line is admitted to be imaginary, the suspicion that the 

 whole line is imaginary becomes irresistible. For, as we 

 shall note in a moment, the contour of the East coast 

 also does not resemble the contour of the East coast 

 of Australia in any remarkable degree. Moreover, if 

 the ship that discovered the East coast did not come 

 by way of Cape York, by what way did it come ? 

 Not by the South coast, for no knowledge of a South 

 coast is pretended. Not by the North of New Guinea, 

 for the map shows no adequate knowledge of that 

 island. 



Mr. Colling- But Mr. Collingridge has a quite different explanation. 



ndge s view. p^ e Chinks that the Portuguese navigators did visit Cape 

 York, and that they knew all about it. But he thinks 

 that, when they made their maps, their wishes were, firstly, 

 to show that Jave la Grande was on the Portuguese, and 

 not on the Spanish, side of the Pope's line ; and secondly, 

 to make the Spaniards believe that there was no practic- 

 able ocean-way South of Java. They, therefore, deliberately 

 drew a map which made Sumbava play two parts : the 

 part of the island of Sumbava, and the part of Cape York. 

 In this way they dragged the larger part of the continent 

 Westward into the Portuguese sphere, and at the same 

 time they dragged it so far Northward that there was 

 only a dubious river between it and Java, a river which 

 the two men are either digging out or filling up with their 

 industrious mattocks. 



Now, if there were strong resemblances between Jave 

 la Grande and Australia, Mr. Collingridge's ingenious 

 argument would be worthy of careful consideration. 

 It is true that the Portuguese were very jealously on guard 

 against foreigners, and that they were entirely unscrupulous 

 in the falsification of maps, especially when they wished 

 to drag valuable properties on to their side of the Papal 

 line? In 1502, for example, they made a famous map 

 of the Atlantic in which, with this purpose, they placed 



