Part 5
We now proceed to a more minute examination of the contour of the coasts. It is to be observed that on the north of the Great Java, as shown in all of these manuscript maps which have met the editor’s eye, occurs the word “Sumbava,”—a fact which, he thinks, has never been noticed by any writer upon these interesting documents. Here is another instance of the discovery of the north of an island of which the south has remained unexplored. The peak of the Great Java, on which this name “Sumbava” is laid down, falls into the right position of the now well-known island of Sumbava, with the smaller islands of Bali and Lombok, lying between it and Java, and with Flores and Timor duly described to the eastward. The reason of this south coast of these islands remaining so long unexplored may be found in the description of Java by Barros, the Portuguese historian, who wrote in the middle of the sixteenth century. He says: “The natives of Sunda, in dissecting Java, speak of it as separated by the river Chiamo from the island of Sunda on the west, and on the east by a strait from the island of Bali; as having Madura on the north, and on the south an undiscovered sea; and they think that whoever shall proceed beyond these straits, will be hurried away by strong currents, so as never to be able to return, and for this reason they never attempt to navigate it, in the same manner as the Moors on the eastern coast of Africa do not venture to pass the Cape of Currents.” The earliest mention that the editor has noticed of a passage to the south of Java, is in the account of the “Four Hollanders’ Ships’ Voyage, being the First Voyage of the Dutch to the East Indies.” See _Oxford Collection of Voyages_, vol. ii, p. 417. Under date of the 14th March, 1597, it is said: “The wind blew still south-east, sometimes more southward and sometimes eastward, being under 14°, and a good sharp gale, holding our course west south-west. There we found that Java is not so broad nor stretcheth itself so much southward as it is set down in the card; for, if it were, we should have passed clean through the middle of the land.” Supposing, then, that the Portuguese navigators have lighted upon the west coast of Australia, and have regarded it as a possible extension to the southward of the already known island of Java; let us proceed to test the correctness of this supposition by the contour of the coast of the western side. A single glance of the eye will suffice to detect the general resemblance. It is probable that the two great indentures are Exmouth Gulf and Shark Bay, and we may fairly conclude we detect Houtman’s Abrolhos in about their proper parallel of from 28° to 29° south latitude. To attempt a minute investigation of the whole coast upon data so indefinite would be of course unreasonable, but on this western side at least the similarity is sufficient, we think, on every ground to establish its identity with the west coast of Australia. On the eastern side the discrepancies are much greater. Having already spoken of the latitude and longitude, we now speak merely of the outline of the coast. In the ancient map we see no huge promontory terminating in Cape York, but let the reader recall the suggestion that the visits to these coasts were made on various occasions, and naturally less frequently to the eastern than to the western side, and let the result of these considerations be that the promontory may have been altogether unvisited or ignored, and we shall have forthwith an explanation of the form of the north-east coast line on the early maps. Let a line be drawn from the southernmost point of the Gulf of Carpentaria to Halifax Bay, and the form of outline we refer to is detected immediately. Nor is this conjecture without corroboration from the physical features of the country. On the ancient map we find several rivers laid down along the north-east coast. If we examine the corresponding coast in the Gulf of Carpentaria, those rivers are seen to exist; whereas from Cape York all along the coast of Australia to the twenty-second or twenty-third degree, there is not even an indication of a river emptying itself into the sea. The great number of islands and reefs laid down along the north-east coast of the early maps coincides with the Great Barrier reefs, and with the Cumberland and Northumberland islands, and a host of others which skirt this part of the shores of Australia. “Coste dangereuse,” “Bay perdue,” and “R. de beaucoup d’Isles,” are names which we readily concede to be appropriate to portions of such a coast. The name of “Coste des Herbaiges,” of which we have already spoken as having been erroneously supposed by many geographers to apply to Botany Bay, was probably given to that part of the coast where the first symptoms of fertility were observed in passing southward, the more northern portions of the shore being for the most part dry and barren. That it is an error to connect the name with Botany Bay has already been shown, at p. xxxiv, and the editor must not fail to state that the unanswerable reason there adduced was derived from a judicious observation made to him by the late distinguished Dr. Brown, who not only, as Humboldt has described him, was “Botanices facile princeps,” but himself acquainted with the locality of which he spoke.
The remainder of the coast southward is too irregularly laid down both as to latitude and longitude, and consequently as to correctness of conformation, to admit of any useful conjecture. It must be supposed from the conscientiousness observable in the delineation of other parts of the country, that this portion was laid down more carelessly, or with less opportunity of taking observations. It is by no means improbable, from the length of this coast line, that “Baye Neufve” is Bass’s Straits; that “Gouffre” is Oyster Bay in Tasmania; and that the survey really ceased at the south of that island. That the continuity of the coast forms no ground of objection to this conjecture, may be shown by the fact that on “a general chart exhibiting the discoveries made by Captain Cook, by Lieut. H. Roberts,” the coast is continuous to the south of Van Diemen’s Land, Bass’s Straits being then of course undiscovered.
It may also be fairly presumed that the islands in the extreme east of our extract from the Dauphin map, represent New Zealand.
If the above reasons have sufficient weight in them to justify the supposition that the extensive country thus laid down on these early maps is really Australia, it becomes a question of the highest interest to ascertain, as nearly as may be, by whom, and at what date, the discovery of this country was made.
The maps upon which the supposition of the discovery is alone founded are all French, and that they are all repetitions, with slight variations, from one source, is shown by the fact that the inaccuracies are alike in all of them. But although the maps are in French, there are indications of Portuguese in some of the names, such as Terre ennegade, a Gallicized form of “Tierra anegada,” i.e., “land under water,” or “sunken shoal,” “Graçal,” and “cap de Fromose.” The question then arises, were the French or the Portuguese the discoverers? In reply, we present the following statement.
In the year 1529, a voyage was made to Sumatra, by Jean Parmentier of Dieppe, and in this voyage he died. Parmentier was a poet and a classical scholar, as well as a navigator and good hydrographer. He was accompanied in this voyage by his intimate friend the poet Pierre Crignon, who, on his return to France, published, in 1531, the poems of Parmentier, with a prologue containing his eulogium, in which he says of him, that he was “le premier François qui a entrepris à estre pilotte pour mener navires à la Terre Amérique qu’on dit Brésil, et semblablement le premier François qui a descouvert les Indes jusqu’à l’Isle de Taprobane, et, si mort ne l’eust pas prévenu, je crois qu’il eust été jusques aux Moluques.” This is high authority upon this point, coming as it does from a man of education, and a shipmate and intimate of Parmentier himself. The French, then, were not in the South Seas beyond Sumatra before 1529. The date of the earliest of our quoted maps is not earlier than 1535, as it contains the discovery of the St. Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in that year; but even let us suppose it no earlier than that of Rotz, which bears the date of 1542, and ask, what voyages of the French in the South Seas do we find between the years of 1529 and 1542? Neither the Abbé Raynal, nor any modern French writer, nor even antiquaries, who have entered most closely into the history of early French explorations, as for example, M. Léon Guérin, the author of the _Histoire Maritime de France_, Paris, 1843, 8vo.; and of _Les Navigateurs Français_, 8vo., Paris, 1847, offer the slightest pretension that the French made voyages to those parts, in the early part or middle of the sixteenth century. Now we do know from Barros and Galvano that, at the close of 1511, Albuquerque sent from Malacca, Antonio de Breu, and Francisco Serrano, with three ships to Banda and Malacca: they passed along the east side of Sumatra to Java, and thence by Madura, Bali, Sumbava, Solor, etc., to Papua or New Guinea. From thence they went to the Moluccas and to Amboyna. See _Barros_, d. 3, l. 5, c. 6, p. 131, and _Galvano, translated by Hakluyt_, p. 378. Here we have the very islands, forming the northern portion of the Grande Jave, at this early date; but that which is totally wanting between this and 1529, is the account of the various explorations of the eastern and western coasts of the vast country described under that name. It is certain, moreover, that France was at that time too poor, and too much embroiled in political anxieties, to busy itself with extensive nautical explorations. Had she so done, the whole of North America and Brazil might now have belonged to her. At the same time, however, we know that the Portuguese had establishments before 1529, in the East Indian Islands, and the existence of Portuguese names on the countries of which we speak, as thus delineated on these French maps, is in itself an acknowledgment of their discovery by the Portuguese, as assuredly the jealousy implied in the sentence quoted at p. vi of this introduction, from Pierre Crignon’s Prologue, would not only have made the French most ready to lay claim to all they could in the shape of discovery, but would have prevented any gratuitous insertion of Portuguese names on such remote countries, had they themselves discovered them.
But, further, as an important part of the argument, the reader must not overlook that jealousy of the Portuguese, to which allusion has already been made (p. v), in forbidding the communication of all hydrographical information respecting their discoveries in these seas. As regards the surmises of M. Barbié du Bocage respecting the probable causes of the suppression or concealment of such documents, his carefulness and ingenuity entitle them to the best consideration; and if those documents really exist in France, or Rome, or elsewhere, it is much to be hoped that they may ere long be brought to light. His Excellency the Count de Lavradio, ambassador from Portugal to the Court of St. James’s, has obligingly set on foot inquiries at Rome for the purpose of elucidating this subject, which have not, however, produced any successful result.
But although we have no evidence to show that the French made any original discoveries in the South Seas in the first half of the sixteenth century, we have the evidence that they were good hydrographers. Crignon describes Parmentier as “bon cosmographe et géographe,” and says, “par luy ont esté composez plusieurs mapemondes en globe et en plat, et maintes cartes marines sus les quelles plusieurs ont navigué seurement.” It is dangerous to draw conclusions from negatives; but it is both legitimate and desirable that we should give due weight to evidence of high probability when such fall within our notice. If all the French maps we have quoted are, as has been shown, derived from one source, since they all contain the same errors; and if Parmentier, who was a good hydrographer, was the only French navigator we find mentioned as having gone so far as Sumatra before the period of the earliest of these maps; and further, if these maps exhibit Portuguese names laid down in these maps on a country beyond Parmentier’s furthest point of exploration, we think the inference not unreasonable that Parmentier may have laid down, from Portuguese maps, the information which has been copied into those we have quoted, and that the descriptions round the coast, which are all (as may be plainly seen), with the exception of those which bear the stamp of Portuguese, convertible into French, have been naturally written by French mapmakers, in that language. We can but throw out this suggestion for _quantum valeat_. All positive evidence, in spite of laborious research, is wanting. The Portuguese names are but few, but there they are, and bear their stubborn evidence. The earliest Portuguese portolani which have met the editor’s eye are those of Joham Freire, of 1546, and of Diego Homem, of 1558. Both these are silent on the subject. That of Lazaro Luis and of Vas Dourado, later in the century, both examined by Dr. Martin in Lisbon, are equally so. But this has been already accounted for. It is true that, in a mappemonde of the date of 1526, by one Franciscus, monachus ordinis Franciscanorum, copied into the atlas to the “_Géographie du Moyen Age_” of Joachim Lelewel, the great Terra Australis, extending along the south of the globe from Tierra del Fuego, is laid down with the words “Is nobis detecta existet,” and “hæc pars ore nondum cognita;” but this is plainly nothing more than a fanciful extension of Magellan’s discovery of the north coast of Tierra del Fuego, combined with the old supposition of the existence of a great southern continent.
A similar remark occurs in the manuscript portolano of Ioan Martinez, of Messina, of the date of 1567, in the British Museum; and in the fifth map of the portolano of the same hydrographer, of the date of 1578, is laid down “Meridional discoperta novamente,” with no names on it, and only shewing the north part. The extent of what is seen is twice as long as Java Major, which seems here to be Sumatra. It is observable that Petan and Maletur, names occurring on or near the Terra Australis of other maps of about this date, occur here, but close under Java Minor, which is a long way to the west of the “Meridional discoperta novamente.”
In 1526 the Portuguese commander, Don Jorge de Meneses, in his passage from Malacca to the Moluccas, was carried by currents and through his want of information respecting the route, to the north coast of Papua, which we now know as New Guinea; and in the following year we find Don Alvaro de Saavedra, a Spaniard, and kinsman of the great Cortes, despatched from New Spain to the Moluccas, and also lighting on New Guinea, where he passed a month; but nowhere in the allusions to these voyages do we find reference to the great southern land, which is laid down with so much detail under the name of “La Grande Jave.”
Our surmises, therefore, lead us to regard it as highly probable that Australia was discovered by the Portuguese between the years 1511 and 1529, and, almost to a demonstrable certainty, that it was discovered before the year 1542.
A notion may be formed of the knowledge possessed by the Spaniards in the middle of the sixteenth century, on the part of the world on which we treat, from the following extract from a work entitled, “El libro de las costumbres de todas las gentes del mundo y de las Indias.” Translated and compiled by the Bachelor Francisco Themara. Antwerp, 1556. “Thirty leagues from Java the Less is Gatigara, nineteen degrees the other side of the equinoctial towards the south. Of the lands beyond this point nothing is known, for navigation has not been extended further, and it is impossible to proceed by land on account of the numerous lakes and lofty mountains in those parts. It is even said that there is the site of the Terrestrial Paradise.” Although this was not originally written in Spanish, but was translated from Johannes Bohemus, it would scarcely have been given forth to the Spaniards had better information on such a subject existed among that people.
It has been already stated at pages xvii and xviii of this Introduction, that in the early engraved maps of the sixteenth century, there occur apparent indications of Australia, with names and sentences, descriptive of the country so represented, derived from the narrative of Marco Polo, with an intimation that some of these representations may not have emanated solely from that narrative. The earliest of these occurs on a mappemonde in the third volume of the polyglot bible of Arias Montanus, and the indication of Australia there given is the more striking that it stands unconnected with any other land whatever, and bears no kind of description. It is simply a line indicating the north part of an unexplored land, exactly in the position of the north of Australia, distinctly implying an imperfect discovery, but not copied from, or bearing any resemblance to, any indication of the kind in any previous map with which the editor is acquainted.
In Thevet’s _Cosmographie Universelle_, Paris, 1575, is a map with Taprobane, La Grand Jave, Petite Jave, Partie de la Terre Australe; and in tom. i, liv. 12, the following passage:
“L’art et pratique du navigage est le plus pénible et dangereux de toutes les sciences, que oncques les hommes ayent inventées, veu que l’homme s’expose à la mercy des abysmes de ce grand ocean, qui environne et abbreuve toute la terre. Davātage, avec ceste Esquille lon peult visiter presque toute ce que le monde contient en sa rotondité, soit vers la mer glaciale, ou les deux poles, et terre Australe, qui n’est encor comme ie croy descouverte, mais selon mon opinion d’aussi grande estendue que l’Asie ou l’Afrique, et laquelle un iour sera recherchée par le moyen de ce petit instrument navigatoire, quelque long voyage qui y peust estre.”
In Dalrymple’s _Hist. Coll. of Voyages in the South Pacific Ocean_, Juan Fernandez is said to have discovered the southern continent. Burney, who speaks of his discovery of the southern continent (vol. i, p. 300), refers to the memorial of Juan Luis Arias for the description. See the first article in the present collection.
It is needless here to repeat the names and sentences already described at page xvii as given on early engraved maps from Marco Polo, but it will be well to notice such peculiarities as distinguish these maps from those in manuscript, which we have already been speaking of as probably representing Australia under the name of La Grande Jave. Such notice is the more interesting as the date of these engraved maps is intermediate between that of the manuscript documents and the period of the authenticated discovery of Australia. In the 1587 edition of Ortelius is a map entitled “Typus Orbis Terrarum,” in which _New Guinea is made an island_, with the words “Nova Guinea quæ an sit insula aut pars continentis Australis incertum.” On the Terra Australis, here brought up far more to the north than elsewhere, and separated from New Guinea only by a strait, are the words, “Hanc continentem Australem nonnulli Magellanicam regionem ab ejus inventore nuncupant.” While this sentence shows how indefinite was the idea of the extent of Australia towards the south, we think that the entire delineation, which brings the great Terra Australis so far northward in this longitude into connexion with New Guinea, goes far to show that Australia had really been discovered.
In various editions of Mercator occur copies of a map entitled, “Orbis Terræ Compendiosa descriptio quam ex magna universali Gerardi Mercatoris Rumoldus Mercator fieri curabat aº 1587,” in which similar indications are given to those in the map of Ortelius just described.
In the map of Peter Plancius, given in the English edition of the voyages of Linschoten, 1598, similar indications of Australia occur, but leaving the question of the insular character of New Guinea doubtful.
In the _Speculum Orbis_ of C. de Judæis, Antwerp, 1592, is a map entitled “Brasilia et Peruvia,” on which occurs, “Chæsdia seu Australis Terra quam nautarum vulgus Tierra di Fuego vocant, alii Psittacorum Terram.” In the map of Asia, in the same volume, a tract is laid down which, by comparison with Ortelius’ map of the Pacific Ocean, is plainly New Guinea; and on both these maps, on the west coast of said tract, are the words, “Tierra baixa,” which seems to tally with “Baie Basse,” at about the corresponding point on the manuscript maps, and is confirmatory of the conclusion which the editor had formed, as stated on page xxvi. In the same volume is a map of the Antarctic hemisphere, in which the Terra Australis incognita is brought high up to the north in the longitude of Australia: on that part of it opposite the Cape of Good Hope is the following legend: “Lusitani bonæ spei legentes capitis promontorium, hanc terram austrum versus extare viderunt, sed nondum imploravere,” a significant sentence, if allowance be made for the difficulty at that time of reckoning the longitude.
In the map to illustrate the voyages of Drake and Cavendish by Jodocus Hondius, of which a fac-simile was given in _The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake_, printed for our Society, New Guinea is made a complete island, without a word to throw a doubt on the correctness of the representation; while the Terra Australis, which is separated from New Guinea only by a strait, has an outline remarkably similar to that of the Gulf of Carpentaria. These indications give to this map an especial interest, and the more so that it is shown to be earlier than the passage of Torres through Torres’ Straits in 1606, by its bearing the arms of Queen Elizabeth, before the unicorn of Scotland had displaced the dragon of England.
In the article “Terra Australis,” in Cornelius Wytfliet’s _Descriptionis Ptolemaicæ Augmentum_, Louvain, 1598, we find the following passage:—
“The ‘Australis Terra’ is the most southern of all lands, and is separated from New Guinea by a narrow strait. Its shores are hitherto but little known, since after one voyage and another, that route has been deserted, and seldom is the country visited unless when sailors are driven there by storms. The ‘Australis Terra’ begins at two or three degrees from the equator, and is maintained by some to be of so great an extent, that if it were thoroughly explored, it would be regarded as a fifth part of the world.”
The above significant statement was printed, it will be remembered, before any discovery of Australia of which we have an authentic account.