st of Java had
already been circumnavigated by European navigators, VAN LINSCHOTEN did
not venture decidedly to assert the insular nature of this island. It
might be connected with the mysterious South-land, the Terra Australis,
the Terra Incognita, whose fantastically shaped coast-line was reported
to extend south of America, Africa and Asia, in fact to the southward of
the whole then known world. This South-land was a mysterious region, no
doubt, but this did not prevent its coast-lines from being studded with
names equally mysterious: the charts of it showed the names of Beach [*],
the gold-bearing land (provincia aurifera), of Lucach, of Maletur, a
region overflowing with spices (scatens aromatibus). Forming one whole
with it, figured Nova Guinea, encircled by a belt of islands.

[* That the Dutch identified Beach with the South-land discovered by them
in 1616, is proved by No. XI A of the Documents (p. 14).]

{Page v}

So far the information furnished by VAN LINSCHOTEN [*]. At the same time,
however, there were in the Netherlands persons who had other data to go
by. In 1597 CORNELIS WIJTFLIET of Louvain brought out his _Descriptionis
Plolomaicae augmentum_, which among the rest contained a chart on which
not only Java figured as an island, but which also represented New Guinea
as an island by itself, separated from Terra Australis. The question
naturally suggests itself, whether this chart [**] will justify the
assumption that the existence of _Torres Strait_ was known to WIJTFLIET.
I, for one, would not venture to infer as much, seeing that in other
respects this chart so closely reproduces the vague conjectures touching
a supposed Southland found on other charts of the period, that
WIJTFLIET'S open passage between New Guinea and Terra Australis cannot, I
think, be admitted as evidence that he actually knew of the existence of
Torres Strait, in the absence of any indications of the basis on which
this notion of his reposed. Such indications, however, are altogether
wanting: none are found in WIJTFLIET'S work itself, and other
contemporary authorities are equally silent on the point in question
[***].

[* See No. I of the Documents, with charts Nos. 1 and 2.]

[** COLLINGRIDGE, Discovery, p. 219, has a rough sketch of it.]

[*** Cf. also my Life of Tasman, p. 89, and Note 8.]

After this digression let us return to the stand-point taken up by the
North-Netherlanders who first set sail for the Indies in 1595.