260 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



have met with no land, they should sail Eastward till 

 they met with land, or till they reached the Longitude 

 of the East side of New Guinea. Then, in the latter case, 

 they should sail North by West in order to fetch up New 

 Guinea. Or, as an alternative plan, they might run 

 further Eastward as far as the Longitude of the Solomons, 

 and then keep a Northward course in order to " discover 

 the said islands which be spread over so vast an area that 

 we could hardly miss them." ' This seems to us the 

 best way of going to work, since we do not in the least 

 doubt that divers strange things will be revealed to us 

 in the Solomon Islands." They might return by way 

 of the North coast of New Guinea. 



But the scheme, adds Visscher, might take a larger 

 form. The ships might start from the Netherlands, sai 

 to the Cape, run Southward to 54, and then, on an Eastward 

 course, explore the whole South Pacific to the Longitude 

 of the Solomons. Or, a still larger variation, they might 

 sail from the Netherlands to the Straits of Le Maire 

 i.e. the straits through which Le Maire had sailed in 1615 

 between Tierra del Fuego and Staten Land thoroughly 

 explore Staten Land (suspected to be part of Terra Aus- 

 tralis), and then sail Eastward right away to the Longitude 

 of the Solomons, in a voyage that would explore the 

 South Atlantic as well as the South Pacific ; " in which 

 way one would become acquainted with all the utterly 

 unknown provinces of Beach " Marco Polo's Beach, 

 still waiting, full of elephants and spices and gold, for its 

 new discoverer " and could return to Amboyna or Banda 

 by the aforesaid route Northward of New Guinea." 



This would leave only one region of the Southern world 

 unexplored, the region between Cape Horn and the Longi- 

 tude of the Solomons. Visscher suggests that it would 

 be well, in order to attack this difficult problem, that the 

 Dutch should possess " some fitting refreshing station " 

 on the coast of Chili. Hence ships might run with the 

 trade wind to the Latitude 12 to 15, " where the Solomon 

 Islands are currently believed to lie." If the current 

 belief proved correct, the ships could get refreshment 



