23 



course could make pretty sure of striking the south coast of 

 Java. The new plan led to several ships sighting various 

 parts of the west coast of Australia in the course of the next six 

 or seven years. Amongst others, the despatch jacht Leeuwin, 

 (Lioness), in 1622, doubled the Cape to which she gave her 

 name. Even by the new route the voyage to the Indies was 

 often very protracted, the Leeuwin, for instance, taking 13 

 months to reach Batavia. There was also the danger of 

 overshooting the mark, as Pieter Nuyts found (1627), when 

 in the Guide Zeepaert (Golden Seahorse) he found himself at 

 the islands of St. Peter and St. Francis, at the head of the 

 Great Australian Bight, and had to coast back some hundreds 

 of miles until he could round Cape Leeuwin. 



The new discoveries quickly attracted the attention and 

 interest not only of the Colonial Government but of the Home 

 Directors, and were a frequent subject of correspondence 

 between the Council of Seventeen and their Governors-General. 

 As early as 1618 the Directors wrote to Governor-General 

 Coen respecting the discovery of a great land situate to the 

 south of Java reported by the ship Eendragt, Commanders 

 Houtman, Edel, and others, recommending that, ships should 

 be sent to examine it and report on its inhabitants and 

 resources, and the opening it might offer for profitable trade; 

 and also to try to find a passage eastward into the Great South 

 Sea. Accordingly, in the next few years several attempts at 

 systematic exploration were made, but with little success. 

 The only result was the discovery by the ships Pera and 

 Arnhem, in 1623, of a portion of the north coast of Australia 

 (now part of the Northern Territory of South Australia), 

 which was named Arnhem Land, and the naming of the 

 Gulf of Carpentaria, after the Governor-General Carpentier. 



One further addition to the knowledge of these coasts was 

 made by l)e Wit, whose ship, the Vianen, leaving the East 

 Indies in January 1628, in the north west monsoon, was 

 driven on to the north west coast of Australia about the Kim- 

 berley District, and who named the country De Wit Land. 



The total result of these various discoveries and explorations 

 was that the coast of Australia, from Cape York on the north 

 to the centre of the Great Australian Bight on the south, had 

 been traced more or less continuously by Dutch ships in the 

 twelve years between 1616 and 1628. This coast was now called 

 by the Dutch "The Known South Land" to differentiate it 

 from those unexplored and supposititious regions for which, 

 with practical sense, they retained the old appellation of '■ The 

 Unknown South Land." Down to very recent times the 

 names of these early Dutch, discoveries were retained on the 

 maps of Western Australia. Half a century ago, when aerosp 



