Richard Henry Major

“ A more happy confirmation of a discovery, unrecorded except in a probably unique map, could scarcely have been hoped for.
In laying this letter before a Society of Antiquaries, who venerate the past, I would not close without one word of reverent tribute to the ancient glories of a once mighty nation. The true heroes of the world are the initiators of great exploits, the pioneers of great discoveries. Such were the Portuguese in days when the world was as yet but a half known and puny thing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Dear Sir Roderick, You have kindly permitted me to dedicate to you this result of my investigations respecting the early explorations of Australia. To none can a book on such a subject be more appropriately offered than to yourself. To you geographers are pre-eminently indebted for the promotion of Australian exploration in recent times, while your ever-memorable scientific anticipation of the discovery of the Australian gold fields must connect your name inseparably with the history of a country, whose future greatness can be foreseen, but cannot be estimated. ”

“ The people of this island are of ordinary stature: they have amongst them people white and red, some in colour like those of the Indies, others woolly-headed blacks and mulattoes. Slavery is in use amongst them. Their food is yams, fish, cocoa-nuts, and they have hogs and fowls.
This island is named Taomaco and the name of the chief, Tomai. We departed from hence with four Indians whom we took, at which they were not much pleased: and as we here got wood and water, there was no necessity for us to go to the island Santa Cruz, which, as I have said, is in this parallel sixty leagues further on. ”

“ At nearly a gun shot from the shore we found on the south east coast of the island seven or eight great rocks, the island being on this side of a rocky and stony aspect, bearing north-east from us; then we had eight fathoms both good and bad ground; with here and there a gulf, where was a straight bank stretching from the coast up to the nearest rock nearly three quarters of a mile from the coast. Along the east side there are many capes and gulfs, with white sand, which is found also round the greater part of the land. ”

“ Indeed, the noise that they made by blowing and dashing of the sea with their tails, making it all of a breach and foam, was very dreadful to us, like the breach of the waves in very shoal-water, or among rocks. The shoal these whales were upon had a depth of water sufficient, no less than twenty fathom, as I said; and it lies in latitude 22° 22 ́. The shore was generally bold all along; we had met with no shoal at sea since the Abrohlo-shoal, when we first fell on the New Holland coast in the latitude of 28°, till yesterday in the afternoon, and this night. ”

“ There is only one spot, about nine leagues to the north of the island, and where three rocks are joined by a reef, that shelter is afforded for a boat, and there one can effect a landing, but the ground is everywhere rocky. Further from the coast there is a raised ground, tolerably level, but of a dry and barren aspect, except near the island, where there is some foliage. In nearly thirty-two degrees south latitude there is a large island, nearly three leagues from the continent, with some rather high mountains, covered with wood and thickets, which render it difficult to pass across. ”

“ The expression that the earth never shall move at any time, implies that it is naturally impossible that its centre of gravity should be moved from the centre of the entire elementary and celestial system, for that would be that gravitation should ascend or move upwards. Hence the statements of the Psalmist in no way opposes what has been demonstrated that there is as much surface of land uncovered and free from water in the southern hemisphere as there is in the northern. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Subsequently, in the year '95, the said adelantado sailed for the last time from Peru, taking with him for his chief pilot the Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, with the purpose of colonizing the island of San Christobal, and from thence attempting the discovery of the southern terra firma. He shortly after discovered to the east of the said island of San Christobel the island of Santa Cruz in 10° south latitude. The island was more than 100 leagues in circuit, very fertile and populous, as, indeed, appeared all those islands which we have mentioned, and most of them of very beautiful aspect. ”

“ But our navigators that way have been confined to the roads of trade, and our discoveries bounded by what we can manage to a certain degree of gain. And I have heard it said among the Dutch, that their East India Company have long since forbidden, and under the greatest penalties, any further attempts of discovering that continent, having already more trade in those parts than they can turn to account, and fearing some more populous nation of Europe might make great establishments of trade in some of those unknown regions, which might ruin or impair what they have already in the Indies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ To the south of this place a great promontory stretches itself to the west, called in the map Cape Falso, and again, to the south of this, is laid down the shallow bight, where it is supposed that Nova Guinea is divided from the South Land by a strait terminating in the South Sea, though, by reason of the shallowness, our people could not pass it; and thus it remains uncertain whether this strait goes through or not, but in the old Portuguese maps New Guinea is laid down as an island under the name of Ceira. ”

“ I do believe there were forty on one island, men, women, and children. The men, at our first coming ashore, threatened us with their lances and swords; but they were frighted by firing one gun, which we fired purposely to scare them. The island was so small that they could not hide themselves; but they were much disordered at our landing, especially the women and children, for we went directly to their camp. The lustiest of the women snatching up their infants ran away howling, and the little children run after squeaking and bawling, but the men stood still. ”

“ In consideration of the uncertainty of life in the human race, and the disorders which many times arise from the loss of those in command, and to prevent as much as possible all evils, we have found good to order, as we do by this: that if the skipper, commodore Abel Jansz Tasman, upon this voyage of discovery should decease (which God forbid) , the skipper of the yacht the Zeemeuw, Dirk Cornelisz Haan, shall succeed in his place, shall be acknowledged and obeyed as chief, and receive and follow this our instruction given to Tasman as given to himself. ”

“ Of all the lands, countries, islands, capes, points or coves, inlets, bays, rivers, shoals, reefs, sands, cliffs, rocks, etc., which you meet with and pass in this discovery, as well upon the coast of Nova Guinea and the south land, as in the Indian Ocean and the inland seas, you are to make accurate maps and circumstantial descriptions, and to draw perfectly the views and form, for which purpose a draughtsman is to go along with you. ”

“ When we had been here about a week, we hal’d our ship into a small sandy cove, at a spring-tide, as far as she would float; and at low water she was left dry, and the sand dry without us near half a mile, for the sea riseth and falleth here about five fathoms. The flood runs north by east, and the ebb south by west. All the neep-tides we lay wholly aground, for the sea did not come near us by about a hundred yards. We had therefore time enough to clean our ship’s bottom, which we did very well. Most of our men lay ashore in a tent, where our sails were mending ”

“ When the attention of a reader is invited to the narrative of a voyage, however interesting and curious in itself, which carries him back to a remote period, it is but reasonable that he should have explained to him the position which such a narrative, arbitrarily selected, holds in the history of the exploration of the country treated of. ”

“ About three leagues to the eastward of this point there is a pretty deep bay, with abundance of islands in it, and a very good place to anchor in or to hale ashore. About a league to the eastward of that point we anchored January the 5th, 1688, two miles from the shore, in twenty-nine fathom, good hard sand and clean ground.
New Holland is a very large tract of land. It is not yet determined whether it is an island or a main continent; but I am certain that it joyns neither to Asia, Africa, nor America. ”

“ As soon as we had got these materials on shore, our carpenter at once set to work with his men, by order of the officers, and by the help of the common people, to build a vessel, so that we might save our lives, if it pleased God. We called it the Sloepie, that is, the little sloop, made up from the wreck of the Zeewyck. When it was ready for sea, we made sail with a south wind and fair weather on the twenty-sixth of March, having with us the money chests of the company, as well as provisions for the voyage. ”

“ At high water, the tides rising so high as they do, the coast shows very low; but when ’tis low water it seems to be of an indifferent heighth. At low water-mark the shore is all rocky, so that then there is no landing with a boat; but at high water a boat may come in over those rocks to the Sandy Bay, which runs all along on this coast. The land by the sea for about five or six hundred yards is a dry sandy soil, bearing only shrubs and bushes of divers sorts. ”

“ But if the late time of the year and the appearance of storms will not permit you to reach Houtman’s Shoal, which after experience we leave to yours and the council’s own judgment, consider how you have to sail again from William’s River to the east, along the coast of the south land and from De Wit’s Land, by the help of the S.E. trade wind, to run across very near eastward to complete the discovery of Arnhem’s and Van Diemen’s Lands; and to ascertain perfectly whether these lands are not one and the same island, and what these places produce ”