a trap," and the error of New Guinea
and the present Australia constituting one unbroken whole, was in this
way perpetuated. The line of the east-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria,
"the land of Nova Guinea", was then followed up to about 17 deg. 8' (Staten
river), whence the return-voyage was undertaken [**]. Along this coast
various names were conferred. [***]

[* As regards the attempts to survey and explore this shallow water, see
_infra_ pp. 33-34]

[** See p. 37 below.]

[*** As regards this, see especially the chart on p. 46.--Cf. my Life of
Tasman, pp. 99-100.]

In the course of the same expedition discovery was also made of
Arnhemsland on the west-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and almost
certainly also of the so-called Groote Eyland or Van der Lijns island
(Van Speultsland) [*] The whole of the southern part of the gulf
remained, however, unvisited.

[* See my Life of Tasman, pp. 101-102; and pp. 47-48 below.]

{Page vii}

The honour of having first explored this part of the gulf in his second
famous voyage of 1644 is due to our countryman Abel Janszoon Tasman
together with Frans Jacobszoon Visscher and his other courageous
coadjutors in the ships Limmen Zeemeeuw and Brak. [*] Abel Tasman's
passagie [course] of 1644 lay again along the south-west coast of New
Guinea; again also Tasman left unsolved the problem of the passage
through between New Guinea and Australia: Torres Strait was again
mistaken for a bay. The east-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria was next
further explored, and various new names were conferred especially on
rivers on this coast, which most probably got the name of Carpentaria
about this time; of the names then given a great many continue to figure
in modern maps. After exploring the east-coast, Tasman turned to the
south-coast of the gulf. In this latter case the results of the
exploration proved to be less trustworthy afterwards. Thus Tasman mistook
for a portion of the mainland the island now known as Mornington Island;
the same mistake he made as regards Maria Eiland in Limmensbocht. For the
rest however, the coast-line also of the south-coast was delineated with
what we must call great accuracy if we keep in mind the defective
instruments with which the navigators of the middle of the seventeenth
century had to make shift. The west-coast of the gulf, too, was skirted
and surveyed in this voyage; Tasman passed between this coast and the
Groote (Van der Lijn's) eiland.

[* Se