246 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



coastline runs Eastwards from the land of Leeuwin, past 

 (to use modern terms) King George's Sound, past the 

 Mount Barrens and Mount Arids described by Flinders, 

 past the hundred and forty-five leagues of cliffs which 

 line the Australian Bight, and past the head of the Bight 

 to Fowler's Bay ; while, slightly further again to the 

 South-East, are shown two groups of tiny islands which 

 are called, as they are still called on the modern map, 

 the islands of St. Francis and St. Peter. At the back 

 of the long bare coastline is the inscription " 't Landt 

 van P. Nuyts, discovered by the Gulden Zeepaerdt of 

 Middleburgh, 26 Jan., 1627." Our only other informa- 

 tion is the statement in a document of 1644 that, " in 

 the year 1627, the South coast of the great South-land 

 was accidently discovered by the ship the Guide Zeepaert, 

 outward bound from the Fatherland, for the space of 

 one thousand miles " (250 Dutch miles). 1 



That is the whole of our knowledge. For the rest, 

 we are left to conjecture. We may guess that the Gulden 

 Seepaart, sailing by accident out of the ordinary route, 

 saw the South coast Eastward of the Land of Leeuwin, 

 and, remembering perhaps the scheme which Coen had 

 drawn up in 1622, was tempted to follow the unknown 

 coast Eastward, did so for what seemed to them one thou- 

 sand miles, and, then returning, gave the new land the 

 name of their distinguished passenger the Hon. Pieter 

 Nuyts, and called the two little groups of islands which 

 marked their furthest East by the sanctified names of 

 the same "Extraordinary Councillor" and of the ship's 

 skipper. 



What report the Councillor and the Skipper made as 

 to the character of land discovered we do not know. But 

 we may form a guess sufficiently accurate by reading 

 the reports of the navigators .who next followed in their 

 tracks a century and three-quarters later ! In 1792 

 the French captain Dentrecasteaux sailed along the 

 Western portion of the coast surveyed by the Dutch 



1 Tasman, ed. Heeres, p. 148. It will be noted that the name of the 

 ship is spelt in various ways. Heeres writes Gulden Zeepaard. 



