Australasia: Eight Lectures

For nearly two thousand years the existence of a great Southland, in the ocean of the southern hemisphere, corresponding to the land mass of the Old World in the northern, was a matter of doubt and dispute among geographers. In the sixteenth century, this land begins to appear vaguely on globes and charts; possibly the information was due to the Malays and Arabs, who were skilful sailors and made long voyages in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It has been thought that the Portuguese, approaching the Malay region from the west, while the Spaniards came from the east, may have been acquainted with the northern coast of the new continent; since they certainly had some knowledge of the northern coast of New Guinea early in the sixteenth century. But our first definite information may be said to date from the beginning of the seventeenth century, when a Spanish exploring expedition, under de Quiros and de Torres, sailed across the Pacific and discovered the New Hebrides group. One of the islands they named la Australia del Espiritu Santo, under the idea that it formed part of the great southern mainland. De Quiros then sailed back to Mexico, but Torres continued his voyage northwestward through the straits which still bear his name, and so to the Spanish Possessions in the Philippines.

But the day of Spain as a sea power was passing away, and it was to the Dutch traders that the western world owed its first real acquaintance with Australia. The early discoveries were often accidental and did not lead to settlement or regular intercourse with the natives. This was due partly to the backward state of the science of navigation, partly to the fact that the voyagers on long expeditions usually lost from half to three-quarters of their crews from disease. The Dutch had the advantage of a local base, as they were already firmly established in the East Indian Islands; so that Australia was really discovered from the Indies.

Trade, not exploration, was the main motive of the Dutch. So, in the early part of the seventeenth century, trading ships were dispatched from Batavia by the Dutch East-India Company to explore the north and west coasts of Australia.

We find all along these coasts the names of the ships still surviving, as in Arnhem Land and Cape Leuwin; those of the captains, as in Dirk Hartog Island, Houtmans Abrolhos, Edels Land and Nuyts Land; while the Gulf of Carpentaria is a memorial to Peter Carpenter, the then Governor of the great trading company.

The most important voyage of all was that of Abel 1 Tasman, in 1642. He started from Mauritius, to discover a passage south of the Australian continent; and after landing in Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania, he sailed across the Tasman Sea and up the west coast of New Zealand, and so back to Batavia by way of Tonga and the Fiji islands and the north coast of New Guinea. He left behind him another name, New Holland, for the whole continent.

These names throughout Australasia bear witness to the skill and energy of the Dutch navigators; but they came only as traders, and the west coast of Australia, which they knew best, had little to attract them to permanent settlement. Sand and grass, hostile natives, and dangerous reefs marked by a series of shipwrecks sum up their impression of the new land. Here are 2,3 two views of the coast; it does not seem attractive for sailors. We can quite understand why they made no effort to open up a trade like that of the East Indies, especially as they missed the east coast, the most promising region for European settlement.