58 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
Good Hope? Tasman we know of; Marion, D’Urville, Cook, 
we know of; La Pérouse we may bring within conjecture. 
But how many more may have been here and left no record ? 
From 1497, the year when the ships of Portugal first drove before 
the westerly winds of the Indian Ocean, to 1769, the year when 
Cook landed in New Zealand, surely there is scope, and to spare, 
for visits by scores of European ships which might, or might not, 
have carried men willing to keep records of their journey ; which 
might or might not have been lost afterwards ; which might or 
might not have left, or lost by stealing, various articles and 
implements. A fair illustration comes to my hand here. Ina 
book entitled »“ The»Discoveries..of. Prince. Henry aby cea 
Major, of the British Museum, is found amongst other maps one 
which the author calls “the Dauphin’s map,’ and which was 
executed for the use of the heir of France in the year 1530. In this 
map the northern, and parts of the western and eastern coasts of 
Australia, are very distinctly laid down; also there is a large 
island shown, which (I believe) ought to be taken for New Cale- 
donia. Furthermore, on p. 298 of the book, Mr. Major says— 
“It should be mentioned that New Zealand is also shown by 
these early maps to have been then discovered.” Who could 
have been these discoverers ? Who, almost alone, about the year 
1530, ploughed the waters of the South Indian and Southern 
Pacific Oceans ? Certainly the Portuguese ; and an interesting 
connection between them and the Tamil bell might easily be 
found, in the fact that the chief Portuguese settlement in the 
east was Goa, on the south-western shore of India. Itis a simpler 
and more likely means of accounting for the Tamil bell, to my 
mind, to suppose that a Portuguese ship, one of many cruising 
about the Eastern seas, touched at New Zealand and there lost 
this bell, than to assume the travels of a Cingalese vessel, none 
of which has been known at any other time to have ventured 
so far to sea. Nothing can be more reasonable than to suppose 
that a Tamil bell might be on a ship of Portugal, whose sailors 
must have been in constant communication with Ceylon and 
Southern India; few things less probable than a journey to New 
Zealand by Tamil sailors in their miserable craft. 
I am wandering somewhat from my particular subject; but 
as this Tamil bell was brought into discussion by Dr. von Haast 
in connection with the rock paintings, I have ventured to throw 
out the suggestion just made, not as desiring to found a theory 
thereon, but as a hint which somebody may perhaps be inclined 
to follow out. Indeed, as I remarked just now, there seems to 
me to be not the very faintest resemblance between the figures 
on the Weka Pass Rock and the inscription of the bell. And 
this brings me to consider a little the particular interpretation 
of the figures given in Dr. von Haast’s paper; a question on 
which I have only space to say a word or two. In so doing, I 
must refer readers to the plate given in Vol. X. of the Transac- 
tions of the New Zealand Institute, as I am unable to give illus- 
trations here, 
