THE DUTCH DISCOVER AUSTRALIA 223 



we must follow the slow groping process by which Dutch 

 seamen discovered bit after bit of the Australian coastline, 

 and pieced these bits together till they grew into the map 

 of Tasman. 



It is not a very interesting story. It is, in fact, a story Dutch 

 of unsurpassable dryness. We have been told that " it 

 was the spirit which had cut the dykes that gained the Australian 

 Spice Archipelago for Holland." But there was very cc 

 little of " the spirit of the dykes " in the use which the 

 Dutch made of their gain. The trail of business is over 

 the whole story ; indeed the whole story is nothing but 

 a trail of business. Complete and singular is the contrast 

 between the Spaniard and his successor. It is the contrast 

 of the Cathedral full of men with all human virtues and 

 vices, and the Factory wherein is neither virtue nor vice, 

 nor even men, but one thing only, desire to make money. 

 In place of Don Quixote we have a bagman, and by Don Quixote 

 no means an " inspired bagman." In place of voyages 

 of knightly mariners, following the gleam of a golden 

 continent, we have a dull story of the gropings, along rocky 

 and barren shores, which cut the utterly uninteresting 

 continent of New Holland out of the beautiful Spanish 

 dreamland of Terra Incognita. In place of quest of 

 a great " mine of souls," we have long inventories of things 

 for barter for " the benefit of the Company." There is 

 no religion in the Dutch story, and there is very little 

 pretence of religion. The Dutch, wrote their representative 

 in Japan, have persuaded the Japanese to expel Spaniards 

 and Portuguese on the ground that they are Christian 

 proselytizers ; and now some " jealous detractors " have 

 persuaded the Japanese that the Dutch also are Christians, 

 and " that the duty of a Christian forbids him from suffering 

 his faith and doctrine to remain stationary. Thus do 

 venomous serpents attempt to suck our blood ! " The 

 Japanese have pulled down the newly erected Dutch ware- 

 house, and " the glory of our nation, only lately shining 

 with radiant lustre in the eyes of the Japanese magnates, 

 has been sadly eclipsed by the Christian name." l " The 

 1 Heeres' Tasman, p. 46. 



