20 



(id filling the South 



to Magellan's Strait and Cape Horn, 

 Pacific with an imaginary continent. * 



When the Dutch had established themselves in the Eastern 

 Archipelago, their spirit of enterprise and adventure, and their 

 ambition to win new realms for the Company's trade, were 

 only stimulated by their unprecedented success. It became 

 an object of ardent desire to the Home Directors, the Council 

 of Seventeen, and to the successive Governors-General of the 

 Indies to explore the mystery of the Great South Land ; if, 

 perchance, they might there find a second Mexico or Peru, 

 rich in gold and silver, or new spice islands, to increase the 

 profits of their trade ; or, at the least, to discover a direct way 

 from their eastern possessions, by the Great South Sea, to Peru 

 and Chili, which would make it easy for them to harass and 

 plunder the Spanish ships and the settlements of South America. 

 It was in 1605— only three years after the foundation of the 

 Company— that the first attempt was made : and the object of 

 this expedition was limited to the exploration of the regions 

 lying to the east of the Banda Islands. With tins view, the 

 JDuyfke (Little Dove or Darling) sailed from Batavia m 1605, 

 visited the Island of Aru, sailed along the south coast of New 

 Guinea, and reached Cape Keer Weer, in 13° S. lat , on the 

 east side of the Gulf of Carpentaria— her captain thinking, 

 however, that he was still on the west coast of New Guinea.^ 



For a number of years the want of suitable vessels which 

 could be spared from the needs of the East India settlements, 

 and the hostilities in which they were constantly involved with 

 their European rivals in the spice trade, coupled with the 

 necessity of consolidating their power in the Eastern Archi- 

 pelago "prevented the Colonial authorities from engaging in 

 distant adventures. The first Dutch discoveries on the west 

 coast of Australia were not the result of design, but were 

 accidental— or, at least, unpremeditated. 



* The prepossession in favour of a Southern Continent was inveterate in 

 the 1 7th and 18th centuries. When Tasman made the west coast of New 

 Zealand he was confident that at last he had discovered the west .side of 

 the lonsr-sousjht Teira Australia Incognita ho late as 1771, Alexanrlei 

 Dalrymple-the Hydrographer to the Admiralty, ami the jealous rival of 

 Cook-published a collection of voyages to the South Sea with the express 

 object of demonstrating the existence of a huge Southern Continent. The 

 only part of the Pacific then unexplored was that lying between New 

 Zealand and Magellan Strait. This gave nearly the area which by 

 elaborate calculation, Dalrymple showed was necessary to preserve the 

 equilibrium of land between the northern am 1 southern hemispheres. 

 He therefore concluded that this space south of the Equator must be 

 almost entirely solid land. Within four years of the publication of 

 Dalrymple's work, Cook in his second voyage, by sailing-over the site 

 of the imaginarv continent, finally dissipated the fable and reduced the 

 Terra Australia incognita to the frozen mass within the Antarctic circle. 



