is
clear that Jansz. cannot have solved the problem, but must have left it a
moot point. At all events he sailed past the strait, through which a few
months after him Luiz Vaez de Torres sailed from east to west.

[* As regards the names given on this expedition to various parts of this
coast, see my Life of Tasman, pp. 90-91, and chart No. 3 on p. 5
_infra_.]

[** See pp. 47, 66 _infra_.]

{Page vi}

Jansz. next surveyed the east-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria as far as
about 13 deg. 45'. To this point, the farthest reached by him, he gave the
name of Kaap-Keerweer [Cape Turn-again]. That skipper Jansz. did not
solve the problem of the existence or non-existence of an open passage
between New Guinea and the land afterwards visited by him, is also proved
by the circumstance that even after his time the east-coast of the Gulf
of Carpentaria was also called New Guinea by the Netherlanders. Indeed,
throughout the 17th and 18th centuries the Dutch discoverers continued in
error regarding this point. They felt occasional doubts on this head [*]
it is true, but these doubts were not removed.

[* See _inter alia_ a report of a well-known functionary of the E.I.C.,
G. E. RUMPHUS, dated after 1685 in LEUPE Nieuw-Guinea, p. 86: "The Drooge
bocht [shallow bay], where Nova-Guinea is surmised to be cut off from the
rest of the Southland by a passage opening into the great South-Sea,
though our men have been unable to pass through it owing to the shallows,
so that it remains uncertain whether this strait is open on the other
side."]

The Managers of the E.I.C. did not remain content with this first attempt
to obtain more light [*] as regards these regions situated to eastward,
the Southland-Nova Guinea as they styled it, using an appellation
characteristic of their degree of knowledge concerning it. But it was not
before 1623 that another voyage was undertaken that added to the
knowledge about the Gulf of Carpentaria: I mean the voyage of the ships
Pera and Arnhem, commanded by Jan Carstensz. and Willem Joosten van
Colstjor or Van Coolsteerdt. [**]

[* See pp. 6, 7-8, 13 and note 2 _infra_.]

[** See the Documents under No. XIV (pp. 21 ff.), and especially chart
No. 7 on p. 46.]

On this occasion, too, the south-west coast of New Guinea was first
touched at, after which the ships ran on on an eastern course. Torres
Strait was again left alongside, and mistaken for a Drooge bocht,[*]
"into which they had sailed as into