Chapter 39

this knotty question.

"Quod verò," writes St. Augustine, "Antipodes esse fabulantur, id est, homines a contaria parte terrae, ubi sol oritur, quando occidit nobis, adversa pedibus nostris calcare vestigia, nulla ratione credendum est. Neque hoc ulla historica cognitione didicisse se affirmant, sed quali ratiocinando conjectant, es quod intra con vexa coeli terra suspenda sit, eum demque locum mundas habeat, et infirmum, et medium: et ex hoc opinantur alteram terra pattern, quae infra est, habitatione hominum carere non posse. Nec adtendunt, etiamsi figura conglobata et rotunda mundus esse credatur, sive aliqua ratione monstretur; non tamen esse consequens, ut etiam ex illa parte ab aquarum congerie nuda sit terra devide etiamus nuda sit, neque hoc statum necesse esse, ut homines habeat, Quoniam nulla modo Scriptura ista mentitur, quae narratis praeteritis facis sidem, eo quod ejus praedicta complentur: nimisque absurdurn est, ut dicatur aliquos hornines ex hae in illam partem, oceani immensitate trajecta, navigare ac pervenive potuisse, ut etiarn illic ex uno illo primo hornine genus institueretur hurnanurn?"

The substance of which is: "That there can be nothing more absurd than the belief of some ancient writers who imagined that the land on the opposite side of the world could be inhabited by human beings. Those who made this assertion admit they have no historical fact to base it upon, and that it is merely a logical deduction of philosophy. But if we accept as true the principles upon which they base their arguments, is it to be necessarily admitted that because these countries are habitable, that they are in reality inhabited. As the Holy Scripture, which is our guide in all matters of belief, makes no mention of this, and as it is an accepted fact that the descendants of our first parents could not have sailed to and reached these countries, how is it possible that they could be inhabited."

Although the existence of a great Austral land was a subject of philosophical and theological discussion among the ancients, they, however, never attempted to sail across that ocean which was the limit of the world they knew. It is possible that the Chinese may have been more bold, but it is very doubtful whether they ever sailed so far south as to land on the coast of the Australian continent. They have left no trace of their passage, either on the land itself, or among its inhabitants. Besides, the Chinese were never very enterprising sailors, the form of their junks, their peculiar sails, and the scantiness of their nautical knowledge prevented them from extending very far the radius of their maritime explorations. Marco Polo is the authority generally quoted in this matter, as he states that the people of Cathay knew of the existence of a great land far to the southward, with the inhabitants of which they were accustomed to trade. This is rather an indefinite description, and might apply to New Guinea as well as to the Australian Continent. More so to the former and the islands surrounding it on the north and east, where evidence exists of the voyage of the Chinese traders and fishermen in search of the precious trepang. But as these holothuriae are generally found in the vicinity of the coral banks of Polynesia, to the eastward of New Guinea, and not in the direction of the Australian coast, there is much reason to think that the Chinese claim to the discovery of this continent is purely mythical, although, like the ancients, they may have believed in its existence as a logical deduction of philosophy.