Part 2
To come down, however, to a later period, the editor is enabled, through the researches of his lamented friend, the late learned and laborious Vicomte de Santarem, to show from early manuscript maps and other geographical monuments, how this belief in the existence of a great southern continent was entertained anterior to the discoveries of the Portuguese in the Pacific Ocean. In his _Essai sur l’Histoire de la Cosmographie et de la Cartographie du Moyen Age_, vol. i, p. 229, the Vicomte informs us that “Certain cartographers of the middle ages, still continue to represent the _Antichthone_ in their maps of the world in accordance with their belief that, beyond the ocean of Homer, there was an inhabited country, another temperate region, called the “opposite earth,” which it was impossible to reach, principally on account of the torrid zone.
“The following are the maps of the world which represent this theory:—
“1. The map of the world in a manuscript of Macrobius, of the tenth century; 2. The map of the world, in a manuscript of the eighth century in the Turin library; 3. That of Cecco d’Ascoli, of the thirteenth century; 4. The small map of the world, in one of the manuscripts of the thirteenth century, of _l’Image du Monde_, by Gauthier de Metz, MS. No. 7791, Bibliothèque Impériale, Paris; 5. That of an Icelandic manuscript of the thirteenth century, taken from the _Antiquitates Americanæ_; 6. That in a manuscript of Marco Polo, of the fourteenth century (1350), in the Royal Library of Stockholm; 7. That on the reverse of a medal of the fifteenth century, in the Cabinet of M. Crignon de Montigny.
“The cartographers of the middle ages have admitted that as a reality which, even to the geographers of antiquity, was merely a theory.”
The earliest _assertion_ of the discovery of a land bearing a position on early maps analogous to that of Australia has been made in favour of the Chinese, who have been supposed to have been acquainted with its coasts long before the period of European navigation to the east. Thevenot, in his _Relations de Divers Voyages Curieux_, part i, Preface: Paris, 1663, says: “The southern land, which now forms a fifth part of the world, has been discovered at different periods. The Chinese had knowledge of it long ago, for we see that Marco Polo marks two great islands to the south-east of Java, which it is probable that he learned from the Chinese.” The statements of Marco Polo, which we quote from Marsden’s translation, run thus:—
“Upon leaving the island of Java, and steering a course between south and south-west seven hundred miles, you fall in with two islands, the larger of which is named Sondur, and the other Kondur. Both being uninhabited, it is unnecessary to say more respecting them. Having run the distance of fifty miles from these islands, in a south-easterly direction, you reach an extensive and rich province, that forms a part of the main land, and is named Lochac. Its inhabitants are idolaters. They have a language peculiar to themselves, and are governed by their own king, who pays no tribute to any other, the situation of the country being such as to protect it from any hostile attack. Were it assailable, the Grand Khan would not have delayed to bring it under his dominion. In this country sappan or brazil wood is produced in large quantities. Gold is abundant to a degree scarcely credible; elephants are found there; and the objects of the chase, either with dogs or birds, are in plenty. From hence are exported all those porcelain shells, which, being carried to other countries, are there circulated for money, as has been already noticed. Here they cultivate a species of fruit called berchi, in size about that of a lemon, and having a delicious flavour. Besides these circumstances there is nothing further that requires mention, unless it be that the country is wild and mountainous, and is little frequented by strangers, whose visits the king discourages, in order that his treasures and other secret matters of his realm may be as little known to the rest of the world as possible.
“Departing from Lochac and keeping a southerly course for five hundred miles, you reach an island named Pentam, the coast of which is wild and uncultivated, but the woods abound with sweet scented trees. Between the province of Lochac and this island of Pentam, the sea, for the space of sixty miles, is not more than four fathoms in depth, which obliges those who navigate it to lift the rudders of their ships, in order that they may not touch the bottom. After sailing these sixty miles in a south-easterly direction, and then proceeding thirty miles further, you arrive at an island, in itself a kingdom, named Malaiur, which is likewise the name of its city. The people are governed by a king, and have their own peculiar language. The town is large and well built. A considerable trade is there carried on in spices and drugs, with which the place abounds. Nothing else that requires notice presents itself. Proceeding onwards from thence, we shall now speak of Java Minor.”
That this description does not apply to Australia the reader of the present day may readily conclude. It has received its explanation in the judicious notes of Marsden, who shows how, from the circumstances, it is highly probablye that Lochac is intended for some part of the country of Cambodia, the capital of which was named Loech, according to the authority of Gaspar de Cruz, who visited it during the reign of Sebastian, king of Portugal. See Purchas, vol. iii, p. 169. The country of Cambodia, moreover, produces the gold, the spices, and the elephants which Marco Polo attributes to Lochac. Pentam is reasonably supposed by Marsden to be Bintam, and the island and kingdom of Malaiur (Maletur, in the Basle edition of 1532, included in the Novus Orbis of Grynæus) to be the kingdom of the Malays.
In the early _engraved_ maps of the sixteenth century, however, we see the effects of this description exhibited in a form calculated to startle the inquirer respecting the early indications of Australia. On these maps we find laid down an extensive development of the great Terra Australis Incognita trending northward to New Guinea; with which, on some of these maps, it is made to be continuous, while on others it is divided from it; and on the northernmost portion of this remarkably delineated land occur the legends: “Beach provincia aurifera.” “Lucach regnum.” “Maletur regnum scatens aromatibus.” “Vastissimas hic esse regiones ex M. Pauli Veneti et Ludovici Vartomanni scriptis peregrinationibus liquido constat.”
We have already explained from Marsden’s notes the reasonable rendering of the name of Lucach or Lochac. The name of Beach, or rather Boeach, is another form of the same name, which crept into the Basle edition of Marco Polo of 1532, and was blunderingly repeated by the cartographers; while for Maletur we have the suggestion of the Burgomaster Witsen, in his _Noord en Oost Tartarye_, fol. 169, that it is taken from Maleto, on the north side of the island of Timor, a suggestion rendered null by the fact, apparently unknown to Witsen, that Maletur, as already stated, was but a misspelling in the Basle edition for Malaiur. The sea in which, on these early maps, this remarkable land is made to lie, is called Mare Lantchidol, another perplexing piece of misspelling upon which all the cartographers have likewise stumbled, and which finds its explanation in the Malay words Laut Kìdol, or Chìdol, “_the South Sea_.” As, however, this striking protrusion to the northward of a portion of the Great Terra Australis Incognita on the early maps in a position so nearly corresponding with that of Australia, may not have emanated solely from the description of Marco Polo, the editor proposes to defer further allusion to these maps until they present themselves in their due chronological order among the documents and data of which he will have to speak.
The earliest discovery of Australia to which _claim_ has been laid by any nation is that of a Frenchman, a native of Honfleur, named Binot Paulmier de Gonneville, who sailed from that port in June 1503, on a voyage to the South Seas. After doubling the Cape of Good Hope, he was assailed by a tempest which drove him on an unknown land, in which he received the most hospitable reception, and whence, after a stay of six months, he returned to France, bringing with him the son of the king of the country. The narrative is given in a judicial declaration made by him before the French Admiralty, dated the 19th of June, 1505, and first published in the _Mémoires touchant l’Etablissement d’une Mission Chrétienne dans la Terre Australe_, printed at Paris by Cramoisy, 1663, and dedicated to Pope Alexander VII, by an “ecclésiastique originaire de cette mesme terre.” The author gives his name in no other way than by these initials, “J. P. D. C., Prêtre Indien.” This priest, as well as his father and grandfather, was born in France; but his great grand-father was one of the Australians, or natives of the southern world, whom Gonneville had brought into France at his return from that country, and whom he afterwards married to one of his own relations there, he having embraced Christianity. The author of the account himself being animated by a strong desire of preaching the gospel in the country of his ancestors, spent his whole life in endeavouring to prevail on those who had the care of foreign missions to send him there, and to fulfil the promise the first French navigator had made, that he should visit that country again. Unfortunately Gonneville’s journals, on his return, fell into the hands of the English, and were lost. The author, however, collected his materials from the traditions and loose papers of his own family, and the judicial declaration above mentioned. This account was to have been presented to the Pope, but it never was printed till it fell into the hands of the bookseller Cramoisy. The narrative is to the effect that some French merchants, being tempted by the success of the Portuguese under Vasco de Gama, determined upon sending a ship to the Indies by the same route which he had sailed. The ship was equipped at Honfleur. “The Sieur de Gonneville, who commanded her, weighed anchor in the month of June, 1503, and doubled the Cape of Good Hope, where he was assailed by a furious tempest, which made him lose his route, and abandoned him to the wearisome calm of an unknown sea.” “Not knowing what course to steer, the sight of some birds coming from the south determined them to sail in that direction in the hope of finding land. They found what they desired, that is to say, a great country, which, in their relations, was named the Southern India, according to the custom, at that time, of applying indifferently the names of the Indies to every country newly discovered.” They remained six months at this land; after which the crew of the ship refused to proceed further, and Gonneville was obliged to return to France. When near home, he was attacked by an English corsair, and plundered of every thing; so that his journals and descriptions were entirely lost. On arriving in port, he made a declaration of all that had happened in the voyage to the Admiralty, which declaration was dated July the 19th, 1505, and was signed by the principal officers of the ship.
In one part of the relation, this great southern land is said to be not far out of the direct route to the East Indies. The land of Gonneville has been supposed by some to be in a high southern latitude, and nearly on the meridian of the Cape of Good Hope; and Duval and Nolin placed it on their charts to the south-west from the Cape, in forty-eight degrees south. The President De Brosses, author of _Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes_, Paris, 1756, 2 vols. conjectured that it was south from the Moluccas, and that it was, in fact, the first discovery of the Terra Australis, since named New Holland.
Gonneville, however, is represented as carrying on during his stay a friendly intercourse with the natives, whom he mentions as having made some advances in civilization. This account is quite incompatible with the character for treachery and barbarous cruelty, which we have received of the natives of North Australia from all the more recent voyagers.
Let the whole account, says Burney, be reconsidered without prepossession, and the idea that will immediately and most naturally occur is, that the Southern India discovered by Gonneville was Madagascar. De Gonneville having doubled (passed round) the Cape, was by tempests driven into calm latitudes, and so near to this land, that he was directed thither by the flight of birds. The refusal of the crew to proceed to the Eastern India, would scarcely have happened if they had been so far advanced to the east as New Holland.
A more reasonable claim than the preceding to the discovery of Australia in the early part of the sixteenth century, may be advanced by the Portuguese from the evidence of various MS. maps still extant, although the attempt made recently to attach the credit of this discovery to Magalhaens in the famous voyage of the _Victoria_ round the world in 1520, is, as we shall endeavour to show, perfectly untenable. The claim of this honour for Spain is thus asserted in the “Compendio Geografico Estadistico de Portugal y sus posesiones ultramarinas,” by Aldama Ayala, 8vo, Madrid, 1855, p. 482. “The Dutch lay claim to the discovery of the continent of Australia in the seventeenth century, although it was discovered by Fernando Magalhaens, a Portuguese, by order of the Emperor Charles V, in the year 1520, as is proved by authentic documents, such as the atlas of Fernando Vaz Dourado, made in Goa in 1570, on one of the maps in which is laid down the coast of Australia. The said magnificent atlas, illuminated to perfection, was formerly preserved in the Carthusian Library at Evora.”
A similar claim was also made for their distinguished countryman, though the voyage was made in the service of Spain, in an almanack published at Angra, in the island of Terceira, by the government press, anno 1832, and composed, it is supposed, by the Viscount Sa’ de Bandeira, the present minister of marine at Lisbon. In the examination of this subject, the editor has had the advantage of the assistance of a friend in Lisbon, who, in his researches among the remaining literary wealth of that city, has exhibited an earnestness and an amount of care and thought but too rarely witnessed in delegated investigations. The reader will not wonder that the zeal of a true lover of literature has been thrown into these researches, when he learns that they have been made by Dr. John Martin, the well-known author (for it would be wrong to call him the editor) in days now long gone by, of that most interesting and important work, “Mariner’s Tonga Islands.” As will be presently seen, the whole question of the possibility of the discovery of Australia having been made by the Portuguese, in the first half of the sixteenth century, is sufficiently enigmatical to call for a great extent of inquiry, and the editor’s venerable and honoured friend, though now grown old in the service of science and literature, has entered into the subject with a cordiality and ardour, commensurate with the puzzling nature of the subject.
But first with respect to the claim on behalf of Magalhaéns, as based upon the map of Vaz Dourado. The following are extracts from Dr. Martin’s reports upon the map.
“On inspecting the map and examining the more southern regions, I found that the island of Timor was the most southern land laid down in lat. 10° S., which is its true situation; while further to the south all was blank, excepting certain ornamental devices as far as about latitude 17° or 18°, which was the lowest margin of the map. To the west and east the map was bordered by a scale of latitude, in single degrees; but this map did not occupy the whole sheet of vellum, for to the right of the eastern scale of latitude something else was laid down, viz., a line of coast running with a little southing from west to east, with many rivers and names of places upon it, and this notice underneath, ‘Esta Costa Descubrió Fernaō de Magalhāes naturall portuges pormandado do emperador Carllos o anno 1520.’
“If the whole sheet is meant to constitute one map and referable to the same scale of latitude, then the coast in question is not where New Holland ought to be, being north of Timor and much too far to the eastward. On turning over to the next sheet (in the atlas) there is a similar line of coast laid down with precisely the same notice (above quoted) at the bottom, and evidently a _continuation_ of the same coast and upon the same scale. I send a list of the names, which I have made out as well as I could, for they are very small and several letters are not very clear.
“The reasons why I cannot consider this coast as part of New Holland, are, 1st. It is at least one thousand five hundred miles in length, and nearly straight as a whole, though indented in its parts; 2ndly. That it is represented to have numerous rivers, which are very rare in New Holland (on the coast); 3rdly. That it is considerably distant from its true place to the south of Timor, which in the atlas is laid down correctly as to latitude, although, 4thly. There is plenty of room for it on the map. I have thought it might be part of the coast of South America, where Magelhaens was long detained, and that it is put down as a sort of memorandum of the great extent of coast which he discovered in the first circumnavigation of the globe. With indomitable perseverance he pushed his way through the straits that bear his name into the Pacific, and in this vast ocean he sailed about for three months and twenty days (says Pigafetta, who accompanied him and wrote an account of the voyage) without discovering anything excepting two small desert islands, until he arrived at the Phillippines. Had he really discovered so much of the coast of a great southern continent, Spain, in whose service he was, might well have boasted of the feat, and Portugal, whose native he was, might have defended the claims of the man who performed it, and not let so bold and noble a discovery (for those times) remain so long in doubt.
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“Now with respect to America: if we examine carefully the list of names upon this line of coast, we shall find some that have a resemblance to those on the coast of America, along which Magelhaens pursued his course. One of these, C. de las Virgines, is found in some maps just at the entrance of the Straits of Magellan, on the eastern side. I do not see any name like Fromose,[4] but there is the name Gaia Fromosa, in or near the Straits of Magellan (in the same atlas). In the enclosed list of names we have also Terra de Gigätes or Terra de Gigantes, and may not this be the Patagonians?
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“On a closer and more minute examination of Dourado’s map, and others, I think it may now be made evident that the coast said to have been discovered by Magalhaéns, in 1520, and mistaken by Sa de Bandeira and others, for part of the coast of New Holland, is no other than the northern coast of New Guinea.
“Now New Guinea, or part of it, as laid down by Dourado, appears under the name of Os Papuos, and extends to the eastward as far as the scale of latitude is marked, but beyond that scale there is about half an inch of space, and there the coast in question commences, and runs a long way towards the east, with a little southing, and has many islands bordering upon it; whether this be either a continuation or a repetition more extended of Papua, it is much in the same latitude, and runs in the same direction. Again, on referring to an old map of Mercator, I found some names upon New Guinea, similar to those on the coast in question; there I found C. de las Virgines; I. de los Cresbos; R. de Bolcados; Buen Puerto, answering to C. de las Virgines; I. de los Crespos: Bullcones Puerto Bueno, as found among the names on the coast in question; but what places the matter still more beyond a doubt is, that the names in both run in the same consecutive order from west to east, upon several of the islands which border the main land.
Names of Islands as laid down in Names of Islands as laid down in Dourado’s map along the coast said Mercator’s map on the coast of New to be New Holland, in consecutive Guinea, in consecutive order from order from W. to E. W. to E.
I. de los Martiles Y. de los Martyres I. dellos Crespos Y. de Crespos I. Duarati Y. Dearti I. de Armo No such name I. de Malagrate Y. de Malagente I. Dombres brancos Y. de Hombres brancos Llabasbuda La barbade Llacuimana No such name Bullcones (is laid down on the main Los Bulcones. land)
“Seeing then that the coast in question, and that of New Guinea are in the same latitude, that they greatly resemble each other in position, that several names upon them are similar, and that the similar names follow each other in both cases in the like consecutive order, and the same direction from west to east, I think we may safely come to the conclusion that the coast in question is identically that of New Guinea, and that the assumption of Viscount Sa de Bandeira and others following him, or whom he has followed, is an error.”
From these observations of Dr. Martin, the editor forms the following conclusions; that the tract laid down on Vaz Dourado’s map as discovered by Magalhaens, is in fact a memorandum or cartographical side-note of the real discovery by Magalhaens of Terra del Fuego, and that from its adopted false position on the vellum it was subsequently applied erroneously to New Guinea by Mercator. But even if this surmise be incorrect, the only alternative that remains is that the tract laid down is New Guinea, and clearly not Australia, as assumed by the claimants to whom we have referred. The editor submits that this claim is alike untenable from the account of Magalhaens’ voyage and from the evidence of the map itself on which that claim is founded.
But we now pass to a more plausible indication of a discovery of Australia by the Portuguese in the early part of the sixteenth century, which ranges between the years of 1512 and 1542. It occurs in similar form on six maps, four of them in England and two in France, on which, immediately below Java, and separated from that island only by a narrow strait, is drawn a large country stretching southward to the verge of the several maps. The earliest in all probability, and the most fully detailed of these maps, is the one from which we give the annexed reduction of that portion immediately under consideration. It is a large chart of the world, on a plane scale, on vellum, 8 ft. 2 in. by 3 ft. 10 in., highly ornamented, with figures, etc., and with the names in French. At the upper corner, on the left hand, is a shield of the arms of France, with the collar of St. Michael; and on the right, another shield of France and Dauphiny, quarterly. It was probably executed in the time of Francis I. of France, for his son the Dauphin, afterwards Henry II. This chart formerly belonged to Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford, after whose death it was taken away by one of his servants. It was subsequently purchased by Sir Joseph Banks, Bart., and presented by him to the British Museum in 1790.