North Coast] 
INTRODUCTION. 
xlvii 
measure, uncertain. Or rather it was certain, that those early navi- Conclusive 
t i i ~ r. Remarks. 
gators did not possess the means of fixing the positions and forms 
of lands, with any thing like the accuracy of modern science j and 
that they could have known very little of the productions, or inha- 
bitants, Of the rest of the Gulph no one could say, with any confi- 
dence, upon what authority its form had been given in the charts ; 
so that conjecture, being at liberty to appropriate the Gulph of Car- 
pentaria to itself, had made it the entrance to a vast arm of the sea, 
dividing Terra Australis into two, or more, islands. 
3rd. A more exact investigation of the bays, shoals, islands, and coasts 
of Arnhem's, and the northern Van Diemen's, Lands. The infor- 
mation upon these was attended with uncertainty ; first, because the 
state of navigation was very low at the time of their discovery ; and 
second, from want of the details and authorities upon which they 
had been laid down. The old charts contained large islands lying 
off the coast, under the names of T' Hoog Landt or Wessel's Eylandt, 
and Crocodils Eylanden ; but of which little more was known than 
that, if they existed, they must lie to the eastward of 135 0 from 
Greenwich. Of the R. Spult, and other large streams represented 
to intersect the coast, the existence even was doubtful. That the 
coast was dangerous, and shores sandy, seemed to be confirmed by 
Mr M'Cl iter's chart ; and that they were peopled by " divers cruel, 
" poor, and brutal nations," was certainly not improbable, but it 
rested upon very suspicious authority. The Instructions to Tasman 
said, in 16*44,, " Nova Guinea has been found to be inhabited by 
" cruel, wild, savages ; and as it is uncertain what sort of people the 
" inhabitants of the South Lands are, it may be presumed that they 
" are also wild and barbarous savages, rather than a civilized people." 
This uncertainty, with respect to the natives of Arnhem's and the 
northern Van Diemen's Lands, remained, in a great degree, at the 
end of the eighteenth century. 
Thus, whatever could bear the name of exact, whether in natural 
history, geography, or navigation, was yet to be learned of a 
