244 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



and Speult's islands, though they extend in another direc- 

 tion than the latter." " Owing to untimely separation," 

 says a record of 1644, " the yacht Arnhem, after discovering 

 the large islands of Arnhem and Speult, returned to 

 Amboyna." 



Discovery of Later maps enable us to interpret these phrases with 

 and 16 " 15 certainty, and to understand with some exactness what 

 happened to the Arnhem after separation " with malice 

 prepense " from the Per a. On the following days Easterly 

 winds blew. If the crew of the Arnhem had intended 

 to go to Aru to have a good time, they had to abandon that 

 intention. They were blown across the great Gulf, the 

 existence of which had been suspected ; and, on the other 

 side, they discovered "islands" and "vast lands," to 

 which they gave the names of their ship and of the Governor 

 of Amboyna who had sent them. " Speultland," the land 

 of the wicked governor, villain of the Amboyna massacre, 

 has happily vanished from the map. Professor Heeres 

 guesses that it was Groote Eylandt. But the land to 

 the West of the Gulf is still named " Arnhem's Land." 

 It is the same vast land which Pool's men rediscovered 

 in 1636, and named after the new Governor-General Van 

 Diemen and his wife Maria, the vast land round the gulf 

 which is still named Van Diemen's Gulf. 



still no To the business mind the voyages of the Pera and the 



3 Arnhem were complete failures. They had found " nothing 

 worth mentioning." Yet their services to the growth 

 of geographic knowledge had been considerable. In 

 terms of the modern map they had traced the length 

 of the Eastern coast, and had obtained some knowledge 

 of the Western coast, of the great Gulf which eventually 

 received the name of Governor-General Carpentier. 

 We must, however, be careful to observe that there was 

 as yet no knowledge of the bottom of- the Gulf, no know- 

 ledge even that it was a Gulf. It was still possible to 

 guess that it was rather the opening of some great Ocean 

 passage to the South, dividing the land of Nova Guinea 

 (Cape York peninsula) from Arnhem's Land, and the 

 Great South land of Eendracht. 



