WAS AUSTRALIA KNOWN? 127 



Endeavour was wrecked. But if anyone still inclines 

 to accept this Eastern coast as authentic, I will ask him 

 to read again the account which Cook gives in his journal 

 of the almost insuperable difficulties in the way of a first 

 explorer of the Queensland coast, and then to consider 

 if it is any way credible that Portuguese seamen, in the 

 circumstances of the time, were able to make the con- 

 tinuous discovery of that coast. 



(3) The claim that the Western coast of these maps The West 

 has resemblances to the Western coast of Australia deserves, coast 

 I think, more serious consideration. I should be greatly 

 astonished if it were proved that Portuguese or Spaniards 

 had knowledge of the Eastern coast of Australia. But 

 I should not be greatly astonished if it were proved that 

 the Portuguese had some slight knowledge of the Western 

 coast. It seems possible, and even probable, that they 

 would hear news from Malay seamen of coasts to the South 

 of Java. And it seems possible, though, I think, not 

 probable, that they might see some part of the Western 

 coast while sailing to or from the Moluccas. I should 

 not, therefore, be surprised to find in a Portuguese map 

 some vague outline, like that, for example, in the Hakluyt 

 map, indicating some vague acquaintance with this coast. 

 I can enter into this West coast argument without the 

 hostile prejudice that I feel in respect to claims of dis- 

 covery on the East. I should be willingly persuaded 

 to accept the cautious opinion of Flinders that " the possibly 

 direction given to some parts of the coast approaches gome 86 ' 

 too near to the truth for the whole to have been marked knowledge, 

 from conjecture alone." 



Now it is certainly curious that while one of these maps, 

 that by Rotz, makes the Western coastline end at 35 

 exactly where the Western coastline of Australia ends 

 at Cape Leeuwin another map (the " Dauphin " map) 

 ceases to give detail at the same point. This looks like 

 knowledge of real geography. But our suspicions begin 

 to wake when we observe that others of these maps 

 those by Desceliers prolong the coastline Southward and 

 give a very elaborate survey of the " Baye des Rivieres " in 



