The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea Being The Narrative of Portuguese and Spanish Discoveries in the Australasian Regions, between the Years 1492-1606, with Descriptions of their Old Charts.

We come now to the most important expedition that ever set out in search of Australia. We have reached the year 1605, in the month of December, of which Queiroz, this time the c...

The maps that I am going to describe in this chapter are beautiful specimens of medieval work; they are, however, somewhat startling, for they reveal, in a most unexpected and s...

As there was a misunderstanding, to say the least of it, between Queiroz, the Portuguese, and his lieutenant Torres, the proud Spaniard, the second in command during the voyage...

Whilst the Portuguese and Spaniards were fighting for the possession of the "Spicery," as they sometimes called the Moluccas, the old dispute about the line of demarcation was r...

With the hope of making fresh discoveries and in pursuance of their object to establish a trade between the Spice Islands and their newly acquired colonies on the western shores...

"And the New South rose with her forehead bare-- Her forehead hare to meet the smiling sun-- Australia in her golden panoply; And far off Empires see her work begun, And her lar...

Twenty-six years had elapsed since the Sarmiento-Mendana voyage, and now Mendana was sent out again with instructions to found a colony at the island of _San Christobal_, in the...

I must now say a few words about the official map of the world, alluded to on page 16. It is by Ribero, and will be found on pages 28 and 29. The date of this map is 1529.

But this agreement did not interfere with other possessions of the Spanish crown, nor did it prevent the Spaniards from making fresh conquests within the limits which had been a...

This is a map of the same type as the one I have just described. It forms part of another large manuscript planisphere, draughted and illuminated by Pierre Desceliers, a priest...

Had the Portuguese and Spanish known the map of New Guinea as we know it nowadays they would, no doubt, have described it as a Guinea fowl, Bird of Paradise or some such creatur...

Besides its beautiful execution there is nothing to call for special notice unless it be that three Portuguese flags are shown as flying over Australian shores, a sure sign of a...