2po THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



Then we follow the track down the coast past Cape 

 Keerweer, past Carstenz's furthest South in 17, and 

 further along to the coast now for the first time 

 explored. We note Tasman's vain gropings for a passage 

 that should lead through the too-solid Continent to Van 

 Diemen's Land, the South Sea, and the route to Chili. 

 Again and again a promising opening proves itself a Shallow 

 Bight and not a Strait. Then the voyage goes along the 



The Gulf Western coast of what has been proved to be a great Gulf. 



1S assage Arnhem's Land is rediscovered, and is proved to be the 

 same land as the Van Diemen's Land of the North, part 

 of the island-continent now at last coming into visible 



A connected and connected being. Then the hitherto unknown coast- 



coast-lme. j ine j g traced f rom y an Diemen's Land of the North to 



Willem's River ; and then, the time allotted having expired, 

 Tasman abandons thought of the dollars at the bottom 

 of the sea at the Abrolhos, and sails to Batavia, to be 

 reproached because he has not walked over the land, 

 and has not increased the Company's dividends by trading 

 with the " naked beach-roving wretches " who were its 

 only inhabitants. 



The Known As we look, then, at this map of 1644, we see the outlines 

 Unknown in ^ "the Company's New Netherlands" as conceived 

 1644. after Tasman's two voyages. From Cape York Peninsula 



to the head of the Australian Bight, and a little beyond, 

 the outlines are rightly understood, though there are 

 inaccuracies in detail which, in view of the circumstances, 

 seem marvellously little. The South coast of Tasmania 

 is known, but what lies between it and the coast of the 

 Australian Bight is not known. There may be a strait 

 North of Tasmania, but the probability perhaps is that 

 Tasmania is part of the continent. New Guinea is also 

 part of the continent, though it is true that even Tasman's 



a careless English copy of it, probably made in 1687, in the British 

 Museum. It has the inscription : " This large land of New Guinea 

 was first discovered to joyne to ye south land by ye Yot Lemmen as by 

 this chart Francois Jacobus Vis. Pilot Major Anno 1643." But, here 

 again, it is the " dotted line " of difficulty which is near the dotted line 

 which marks the ship's course : the firm line is far away to the East, 

 and quite out of sight. See Major's Early Voyages, p. xcvi, and Heeres' 

 Tasman, p. 73. 



