CHAPTER IX.
OF THE NATIVES OF AUSTRALASIA.
S e c t io n I.—Discovery o f different Darts o f Australasia,
and Subdivision o f the Coast into different Regions.
The great island or separate continent of Australasia, long
known under the name of New Holland, is said to have heen
descried by Portuguese navigators from the Spice.Islands
before the year 1642. The first designation that' it received
was that of New Java, under which it is distinctly marked in
an old map bearing the date above specified. The extent of
the country was entirely unknown, and its very existence was
a matter of uncertainty until the year 1606*.when a Dutch
ship named the Duythen from Bantam sailed along 300
leagues of the northern coast to,the westward of Torres’ Straits.
All the information obtained by the navigators ofithe Duythen
is comprised in the following expressions, f/ This yast country
was found for the most part desert. In certain places, however,
savages were met with, black, cruel, and fierce, who
murdered some of the crew. Nothing could be learned from
them about the country. Even water and provisions could
not be procured, and the want of these was so great in the
crew as to prevent them from further pursuing their discoveries.”
The point to which the Dutchmen advanced along
this coast was called by them Cape Keerwier or Cape
Return.* In the same year the celebrated Spanish navigator,
Don Luis.Vaes de Torres, second in command under Fernandez
de Quiros, having separated from his admiral after the
* I have taken this account from the excellent-summary of Dumont
d'Urville.
discovery-of the island called Australia del Espirifcu Santo,
found the strait which now bears his name, and which separates
the southern part -of New Guinea from the northern
extremity of the greater Australia,* now called Cape York.
Ten years later, in löl/i,* Dirék Hatticks, captain of the
Dutch merchant vessel- Eendracht, discovered a part of the
western coast and named it -“after his ship “.the land of
; Jlendracht.”; Ind$3?9 Edel gave his name to w part of the
same sea-border lying to the southward of the great reef
called Houtman’s Abrolhos ; and three> years afterwards the
' south-western cape near KihgiGeorge’s Sound was discovered
by the navigators of the ship Leeuwin. .'oft?
board the Guide Zeepaard, sailed in Ii027 along the Southern
shore of Australasia from the promontory of Leéuwin. He is
supposed to~ have coasted aiofig a thousand miles from the
cape just mentioned to the bottom of the southern bight,
having all the remainder of the coast in this direction to be
explored for the first time
To the : northward of Dirck1 Hattieks' -diseoVeriest that part
of th©; continent which bears the mamè of Arnheiin’s Land
was explored in 1627 by Jan Carstélil- and ttee crew -of the
ship Arnheim sent from Amböyrila.u;(Parsièn have
perished by the Weapons of the Australian savages. I n -H i||
De Witt gave his name to a part of the western coast to the
northward of the so-termed north-west cape. Tasman, who
in 1643 had discovered the island which long1 bore the name*
of Van Diemen, the Dutch governor of Batavia, and which
till the expedition of Bass was always- supposed ito be a part
of the main land of New Holland, explored in a second voyage
the north-western coast of Australasia between De Witt’s
Land and the Gulf of Carpentaria. This he likewise named
Van Diemen’s Land. In 1688 and 1699 Dampier sailed
along a part of the north-western coast, and this intelligent;
and enterprising navigator was the first, as M. Dumont
d’Urville has remarked, who gave to- the world any valuable
* Australasia is, perhaps, the most correct name foil tfris^great country, but
as Australia is also a customary apfellation and is shorter, I shall, take the
liberty of using them indifferently.
B 2